Paavo Berglund The Warner Edition

Limited 96 CD set. Conductor, pianist, composer and media personality, André Previn excelled in a diversity of musical genres and idioms. A child prodigy in his native Berlin, he moved to the USA in 1939 and made his early career in Hollywood, winning four Academy Awards. His time as Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (1968-1979) established him as a major interpreter of symphonic repertoire, particularly Russian, French and British music - "The very definition of good conducting," wrote Gramophone of his celebrated LSO version of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker.

Warner Classics brings you the for the first time for streaming, a remastered recording of Paavo Berglund with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and composer & pianist John Ogden. Ogden was a fierce promoter of the works of Richard Yardumian (1917-1985) who was an Armenian-American composer, and whose post-Romantic music was popularized by his close partnership with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Ogden had a particularly close connection with the Passacaglia, Recitative and Fugue featured in this album, this piece is still very rarely put on record, it's rich yet easily accessible. This recording also features Glazunov's Piano Concerto No. 1.

The ballet Miracle in the Gorbals (named after the working-class quarter of Glasgow), still rarely recorded, is a very somber and violent piece of music, one of the most intense among the works of Arthur Bliss. The suite recorded by Paavo Berglund finally makes its digital debut, coupled with a late cello concerto (of a quite different kind, cheerful and optimistic), premiered by Mstislav Rostropovich at Britten’s Aldeburgh Festival in 1970, and here performed by Berglund fellow countryman Arto Noras.

In addition to his symphonic recordings, Berglund also recorded concertos by Shostakovich with Tortelier and Ortiz. The album also includes the piano solo "Three Fantasy Dances", recorded in 1973-1975.

A true specialist of his fellow countryman Jean Sibelius’ music, Paavo Berglund recorded no less than three complete symphony cycles for EMI/Finlandia! That makes him the most devoted Sibelius conductor of the whole discography. The first symphony Berglund ever put on record was Sibelius’ seventh, his musical testament and a pure concentrate of his musical genius. It is made available in a brand-new audio cut, and coupled with other late masterpieces such as Tapiola or The Oceanides.

The sixth, tenth and eleventh symphonies by Shostakovich are among the most popular of the corpus. They showcase the composer’s quintessence: with atmospheres by turns sombre, deceptively merry, or ironical, this is music often imbued with pomp and militarism… A great specialist in Russian music, Paavo Berglund dedicated a large part of his career to promoting the works of Shostakovich, during a time when it was still poorly considered in the West.

Here comes another splendid album by Paavo Berglund, devoted to Russian music that was so dear to his heart. This recording includes two suites excerpted from major operas: Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel, a cruel tale about the devastating effects of ambition and power quest, and Prokofiev’s frivolous Betrothal at the Monastery, the suite of which he entitles Summer Night.

Paavo Berglund (1929-2012) was recognised as a father-figure in modern Sibelius conducting. He notably recorded no less than 3 times his complete symphonies, with the Bournemouth Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic and later with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Besides much music of his homeland and Scandinavia in general he was able to demonstrate his prowess in Russian music, particularly Shostakovich, and flair for British music including Vaughan Williams and Bliss. After his time in Bournemouth and Helsinki he conducted all the major British orchestras as well as the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Staatskapelle Dresden and the New York Philharmonic and Cleveland Orchestras.

Má vlast, also known as My Fatherland, is a set of six symphonic poems composed between 1874 and 1879 by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. The six pieces, conceived as individual works, are often presented and recorded as a single work in six movements. They premiered separately between 1875 and 1880. The complete set premiered on 5 November 1882 in Žofín Palace, Prague, under Adolf Čech.