Paavo Berglund RIP

[EnemyoftheStoat]

http://www.svd.se/kultur/dirigenten-paavo-berglund-ar-dod_6800031.svd

A very sad day.

[Bryn]

http://super-conductor.blogspot.com/2012/01/paavo-berglund-1929-2012.html

[Nick Armstrong]

Very very sad - one of the best, gone. PB had been there from the very earliest days of my interest in music (Shostakovich 7; Walton/Shostakovich cello concertos)



PS Worth seeing him at work with another master in this clip that's been on this forum a couple of times thanks to amateur51 but which never fails to mesmerise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=633pgaoZPTQ

[Roehre]

Very sad news.
His performances of Sibelius and Sallinen introduced me to these composers some 30 years ago.

RIP
Paavo Berglund.

[amateur51]

Very very sad - one of the best, gone. PB had been there from the very earliest days of my interest in music (Shostakovich 7; Walton/Shostakovich cello concertos)



PS Worth seeing him at work with another master in this clip that's been on this forum a couple of times thanks to amateur51 but which never fails to mesmerise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=633pgaoZPTQ

Thanks for this, Caliban

As a fellow left-hander I recall being mesmerised the first time I saw Berglund conducting 'live' - funny how sometimes the apparently small things count for a lot. He conducted the first concert performance of Sibelius' Kullervo that I saw & the memory lives on.

[Chris Newman]

How sad. I remember hearing what must have been the second British public performance of Kullervo at the Festival Hall in 1970. Maestro Berglund had played it a couple of days before in Bournemouth with the BSO, a Helsinki student choir, Raili Kostia and Usko Viitanen. Eight years later I moved to Salisbury and the BSO and Bournemouth Sinfonietta were our local pro orchestras and I heard them with PB several times. He was a fine left-hander.

Here he is in a Sibelius gem, The Bard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii2z5wdBRpw

[BBMmk2]

A very sad day. My first introduction to Sibelius.

[pastoralguy]

I remember him conduct Ida Haendel in the Sibelius concerto with the SNO in 1978. After the interval they played a blistering Tchaikovsky 4.

(I also remember him stopping the SNO a few moments into Schubert 5 after audience members came in late. If looks could have killed...)

[petermark]

A touching coincidence

And what an extraordinary coincidence that, on the day of Maestro Berglund's death, Radio 3 should broadcast a live performance of Sibelius's 5th Symphony by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (of which he was Principal Conductor from 1972-1979 and remained Conductor Emeritus). Kirill Karabits had worked with Berglund as his Assistant Conductor some years ago - and the performance was terrfific!

[Richard Tarleton]

(I also remember him stopping the SNO a few moments into Schubert 5 after audience members came in late. If looks could have killed...)

My first Shostakovich 10, with the Bournemouth SO in Exeter, circa 1970. There were latecomers here - after he reached the podium but before the music started. As you say......

The last word in Sibelius. RIP

[rubbernecker]

I remember at the Barbican a few years ago he managed to go straight from the last chord of Sibelius 6 to the opening of Sibelius 7 without being interrupted by a single handclap. There was no prompting in the programme that he was going to pull such a rare feat. Genius.

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

I'm desperately saddened by this news, though unsurprised. He hadn't been seen on the concert platform in London for some years now. The last time I saw him was in a concert of Sibelius 6 & 7 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the RFH. He conducted from a seated position and barely turned to acknowledge the applause after the 6th before launching into the 7th.

I had the pleasure of meeting him in my teens. I had been taken to a Bournemouth SO concert in Poole by friends of my parents. In the interval, they bumped into friends who the Berglunds always stayed with during their visits, so we were invited back for supper after the concert. By the time we arrived, Paavo (or Paul as he was referred to throughout the evening) was there. He usually brought his hosts his latest LP as a gift, but this was now the age of CDs, so he'd bought them his new disc and a CD player on which to play it. The disc was playing (loudly) in the next room. At that time, I only knew one Sibelius symphony (the First) and correctly identified the third movement, with its eight-note timpani motif, which impressed him enormously.

He spent the evening talking about Sibelius, making recordings and the way they were received here. He had a particular thing about Robert Layton in Gramophone, who always stopped just short of praising outright a Berglund release. It clearly irritated him.

At one point, his wife berated him for having the CD playing too loudly. 'Nonsense!' he retorted with a twinkle in his eye, 'You need to play it back at a high volume to appreciate the quieter bits!' I diligently followed the great man's advice ever since, much to the chagrin of my parents...

He played us some of the themes from the Rachmaninov 3rd Symphony (which had featured in that evening's BSO concert) on his violin, which he played left-handed - a magic moment. Somewhere, I still have the programme he signed for me.

R.I.P. Paavo

[Nick Armstrong]

I remember at the Barbican a few years ago he managed to go straight from the last chord of Sibelius 6 to the opening of Sibelius 7 without being interrupted by a single handclap. There was no prompting in the programme that he was going to pull such a rare feat. Genius.

I was seated not far from you, I recall... I'd forgotten that. Great concert.

[rubbernecker]

Next to me, I think. It was the Barbican, wasn't it? He was standing and didn't turn round at all, but kept his hands in the air. Il Grande talks about the RFH and him being seated but I guess this must have been a different (and later) concert.

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

Next to me, I think. It was the Barbican, wasn't it? He was standing and didn't turn round at all, but kept his hands in the air. Il Grande talks about the RFH and him being seated but I guess this must have been a different (and later) concert.

Definitely the RFH for me - 6th December 2003. The 7th was released on LPO's own label. The first half - Brahms' 2nd Piano Concerto with François-Frédéric Guy - was issued on Naive. Sadly, the recording of the Sixth never appeared on disc, but is doubtless in the LPO's vaults.