Paavo Berglund, Finnish Conductor, Dies at 82 Chris Lee Paavo Berglund with the New York Philharmonic in 1991. Paavo Berglund, a Finnish conductor renowned for his commanding interpretations of Sibelius's symphonies and tone poems, died on Jan. 25 at his home in Helsinki. He was 82. The apparent cause was pneumonia, said his daughter, Liisa Kylmanen, who noted that he had been in poor health for some time. Mr. Berglund was a conductor of the old, authoritarian school. His uncompromising podium manner, at a time when conductors were expected to lead through gentle persuasion, sometimes created friction with orchestral players, who saw him as dictatorial. But the insights he brought to the music at hand typically prevailed. His style was straightforward, without flashiness. In a review of his United States debut, with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 1978, John Rockwell, writing in The New York Times, noted Mr. Berglund's "unglamorous podium appearance, far from the blow-dried, television announcer norm of the day." Mr. Berglund's Sibelius performances combined intense scholarship and a level of interpretive license that could be surprising. After an early performance of the Sibelius Seventh with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra convinced him that the published version of the work was riddled with errors - the orchestra had played from parts that Sibelius corrected by hand - he searched out the manuscript and prepared a new version. He published an account of his findings, "A Comparative Study of the Printed Score and the Manuscript of the Seventh Symphony of Sibelius," in 1970. But though he revered Sibelius, he could be critical of the composer's orchestration as well. He made changes when he felt Sibelius had misjudged an effect. "The way I conduct a Sibelius symphony is very different from the manuscript," Mr. Berglund said in an interview in 1995. It will naturally sound horrible when I say that Sibelius wrote downright poorly. Just about everything has to be corrected. And as demonstrated by his surveys of the symphonies - recorded with the Bournemouth Symphony in the "70s, the Helsinki Philharmonic in the "80s and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in the "00s - his views of the works changed over the years. The earlier sets prize the music's dark, Nordic grandeur as well as its clarity of texture. The set with the more compact Chamber Orchestra of Europe takes the fascination with clarity further in often spare readings that deliberately sidestep Sibelius's often quoted direction, that the details of his symphonies should "swim in the soup." Paavo Allan Engelbert Berglund was born in Helsinki on April 14, 1929. He began his musical studies as a violinist and studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He joined the violin section of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1949 and led the orchestra for the first time after he was overheard criticizing a conductor. The conductor asked if he could do better. In 1952 Mr. Berglund founded the Helsinki Chamber Orchestra and was its first conductor. He also took a position as an assistant conductor with the radio orchestra and was elevated to chief conductor in 1962. During his decade at the orchestra's helm, he toured Europe and the Soviet Union with it. Mr. Berglund made his British debut in 1965, leading a Sibelius centenary concert with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. He became principal conductor in Bournemouth in 1972, and took over the podium of the Helsinki Philharmonic in 1975. After he gave up both posts, in 1979, and devoted himself mostly to guest conducting for several years before becoming the principal conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, from 1987 to 1991, and the Royal Danish Orchestra, from 1993 to 1998. He appeared with several major American orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, which he led most recently in 1996. In addition to all of Sibelius's orchestral and choral music, Mr. Berglund's discography includes highly regarded accounts of the Shostakovich Symphonies, Smetana's "Ma Vlast" and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the pianist Leif Ove Andsnes. In addition to his daughter Liisa, he is survived by his wife, Kirsti; a son, Juha; another daughter, Eeva Berglund; and five grandchildren. Mr. Berglund was said to have had a direct link to Sibelius, who provided important encouragement in the early years of his conducting career, but he played down the connection. "I didn't know Sibelius personally," he told the Finnish music critic Vesa Siren, describing his meeting with the composer in the early 1950s as little more than a brief exchange. He asked me if we played Schoenberg. I said that we didn't. That was the whole conversation.