Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Paavo Berglund - Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 1-7, Tapiola, Karelia Suite, Finlandia, The Bard, The Swan of Tuonela (2013)

Paavo Berglund was born in Helsinki, Finland, on 14th April 1929 and died there on 25th January 2012.

He studied the violin and by 15 had decided to make his career in music gaining experience from playing and restaurants and dance orchestras. Formal study was taken at the Sibelius Academy in his home city and in Vienna and Salzburg. In 1949 he joined the first violin section of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, unique in being accommodated for seating as he was left-handed.

He was greatly impressed by Furtwängler when he brought the Vienna Philharmonic to Helsinki and he was soon studying in Vienna where his friends in the orchestras allowed him access to rehearsals and recording sessions. He formed his own chamber orchestra in 1949 and co-founded the Helsinki Chamber Orchestra four years later. In 1955 he started his long association with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra first as Associate Conductor and then Chief Conductor.

It was a series of Sibelius Centenary Concerts in 1965 that brought him to Bournemouth, becoming the principal conductor of the city’s Symphony Orchestra in 1972 and over the next seven years made numerous recordings including the Symphonies of Sibelius together with many of the tone poems.

Sibelius, born in 1865, became Finland’s leading composer and his works have attracted numerous major non-Finnish conductors to programme them in their concerts – Beecham, Karajan, Barbirolli and Rattle are just four of many. Berglund went even further by preparing Sibelius’s early Kullervo for recording which he duly did in Bournemouth. This collection features all the numbered symphonies together with a number of tone poems ranging from his early Karelia Suite to his final completed work, Tapiola, and is truly a magnificent introduction to this masterly composer.