Tributes pour in for fallen Finnish maestro

Vesa Siren on the Helsingin Sanomat has been collecting memories of Paavo Berglund, the doyen Finnish conductor, who died today aged 82. He interviewed Kurt Masur from Leipzig, Esa-Pekka Salonen from London, Jukka-Pekka Saraste from Oslo, Sakari Oramo from Stockholm and John Storgårds from Helsinki Music Centre for his obituary (in Finnish, here).

And here are the maestro comments.

Vesa adds: I interviewed Paavo several times, including long interviews in 2009 when he turned 80. It took time, but he did open up and talked about everything. In the middle of our last interview, he said: let’s listen. And listen we did. That was the broadcast of his last concert June 1st 2007 at Salle Pleyel with French Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. Brahms violin concerto with Christian Tetzlaff, and the the most beautiful Sibelius 4th he ever did, including the famous recordings.

“This is amazing. How everything is crystal-clear and pure”, he exclaimed while we listened to it. For once he who always searched for perfection was perfectly satisfied.