Paavo Berglund, Bournemouth SO – Sibelius: Complete Symphonies (1972-77) [Japan 2017] SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Paavo Berglund, Bournemouth SO – Sibelius: Complete Symphonies (1972-77) [Japan 2017]
SACD Rip | 4x SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 311:28 minutes | Basic Scans included | 8,39 GB
or DSD64 2.0 Stereo (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Basic Scans included | 7,66 GB
or FLAC Stereo (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Basic Scans included | 6,61 GB

Conductor Paavo Berglund transformed several orchestras into world-class ensembles over his long career. Known as a perfectionist, he specialized in the music of Sibelius and made three complete recordings of his symphonies. Paavo Berglund and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra recorded this cycle of the symphonies of Jean Sibelius between 1972 and 1977, with additional recordings of the tone poems dating from the same period.

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Paavo Berglund – The Popular Sibelius: Finlandia, Valse triste, Karelia, The Swan of Tuonela, Lemminkäinen’s Return, King Christian II… (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Paavo Berglund – The Popular Sibelius: Finlandia, Valse triste, Karelia, The Swan of Tuonela, Lemminkäinen’s Return, King Christian II… (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 46:41 minutes | 1,74 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

The Finnish conductor Paavo Berglund was considered one of the best-known and greatest interpreters of Jean Sibelius’ works in his time. His lively conducting brought out the unique compositional language and special tonal colours in Sibelius’ work and fuelled interest in his oeuvre. Berglund paid meticulous attention to the original Sibelius text.

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Russian National Orchestra, Paavo Berglund – Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8 ‘Stalingrad’ (2006) DSF DSD64

Russian National Orchestra, Paavo Berglund – Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8 ‘Stalingrad’ (2006)
DSF Stereo DSD64, 1 bit/2,82 MHz | Time – 01:06:28 minutes | 2,62 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: nativeDSDmusic | Booklet, Front Cover | © Pentatone Music B.V.

Not until later on, in his posthumously published memoirs, did Shostakovich provide a personal insight into his Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65, which he completed on September 9, 1943 in only two months’ time, following a short, yet agonisingly dry creative period: “The Seventh and the Eighth are my ‘Requiem’.” At the time, his first comments on the new work were very different, and (as was usual during Stalin’s regime, one should add) meaningless: “This work mirrors my thoughts and feelings following the joyous reports on the first victories of the Red Army.” For sure … After all, it would be hard to come up with another 20th-century symphony that soundsas inscrutable and sadly fateful as Shostakovich’s Eighth.

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London Philharmonic Orchestra & Paavo Berglund – Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

London Philharmonic Orchestra & Paavo Berglund – Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:10:36 minutes | 742 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © London Philharmonic Orchestra

Finnish conductor Paavo Berglund, who passed away in January 2012, was one of the last remaining conductors with a direct personal connection to Sibelius. With the Second and Seventh Symphonies already released on the LPO Label, Berglund’s Sibelius legacy is further cemented in these live concert recordings with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, in which he vividly captures the natural flight of the Fifth Symphony and the freefall journey of the Sixth.

The affinity Berglund felt with the music of Jean Sibelius went beyond shared nationality and personal acquaintance. Berglund revealed a rare physicality in Sibelius’s scores. It was there in his three recorded symphony cycles, but in these late London performances it emerged in a different, darker light. Berglund wasn’t as meticulous about observing marked tempi as some of his younger compatriots are. Instead he was impulsive, rugged and heartfelt. But his instincts always seemed to serve the musical architecture, the curious symphonic meta-flow unique to Sibelius. His death in January 2012 was talked of as a goodbye to one of the last conductors of the ‘old school’.

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