page_title: Paavo Berglund
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Paavo Berglund / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of the Finnish conductor Paavo Berglund (to the right) with the violinist Heikki Louhivuori.
context_page_description: Paavo Allan Engelbert Berglund OBE was a Finnish conductor and violinist.
context_section_description: Born in Helsinki, Berglund studied the violin as a child, and played an instrument made by his grandfather. By age 15, he had decided on music as his career, and by 18 was playing in restaurants.
  During the Second World War, Berglund worked at the iron factories in Billnäs. Children were moved out of Helsinki during heavy stages of the war. His professional career as a violinist began in 1946, playing the whole summer at the officers' mess (Upseerikasino) in Helsinki. He had already played in dance orchestras in 1945. Formal study took place in Helsinki at the Sibelius Academy, in Vienna and in Salzburg. He was a violinist in the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1949-58 in the 1st violin section, unique among the instrumentalists in being accommodated for seating to account for the fact that he played the violin 'left-handed'.
  In a radio interview made of the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE in 2002, Berglund explains how he heard the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra on their tour in Helsinki with Wilhelm Furtwängler and was very impressed. Shortly after that he left for Vienna to study. He had many friends both in the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna Radio Symphony orchestras, and could attend rehearsal and recording sessions. One particular recording session he remembers is when he was present one evening when Furtwängler recorded Schumann's Manfred Overture and Smetana's Die Moldau (Vltava) at the Musikverein in Vienna. Another conductor that he was very impressed with was Hans Knappertsbusch.
  Berglund's conducting career began in 1949, when he founded his own chamber orchestra. In 1953, Berglund co-founded the Helsinki Chamber Orchestra (partly inspired by the Boyd Neel Orchestra).
  In 1955, he was appointed Associate Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and served as chief conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1962-71. Berglund became music director of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra in 1975 and held the post for four seasons. He was conductor of the mixed voice choir of the Student Union of the University of Helsinki, The Academic Choral Society (Akateeminen Laulu) from 1959-61.
  Berglund attained notoriety as a strict orchestral disciplinarian due to his ruthless rehearsals and dedication to musical perfection. As a conductor Berglund often went beyond the printed score in the music of Jean Sibelius and others to improve on what he believed were weaknesses, especially in orchestration, colour and balance.
  Most orchestras he conducted responded well to his no-nonsense approach. He was tireless in studying, preparing and rehearsing. He almost always came to the orchestra with his own materials he had corrected and bowed by his own hand. He would then mark highly detailed instructions on the sheet music of each individual musician.
  Berglund would certainly not always agree with composers; he felt comfortable in elaborating any nuances he considered important but which the composers had not highlighted. He believed in details: "I think we have already had our fill of mushy recordings", Berglund noted in an interview by Finnish Music Quarterly (FMQ) in 1999.
  In the UK, Berglund led Sibelius Centenary Concerts with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in 1965, and became their principal conductor in 1972, concluding his tenure in Bournemouth in 1979. He significantly raised its performing standards, as can be heard from the many recordings made by it for EMI during this period. He also served as principal guest conductor of the Scottish National Orchestra, from 1981-85.
  Berglund resigned from both the Helsinki and Bournemouth orchestras in 1979. More noticed in his native Finland was the fact that he had seemed to give up his dictatorial ways. In 1996, he was quoted as saying, "The rise in the standard of Finnish orchestras has been quite incredible...young musicians play so much better than their predecessors did."
  Guest engagements saw him conducting all the major North American and European orchestras, such as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Dresden
caption: Berglund (right) with the violinist Heikki Louhivuori of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra
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