Since Paavo Berglund is one of the most admired interpreters of Jean Sibelius, it's scarcely a surprise that his program with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra features one of the Finnish master's symphonies. But don't ask the conductor if hailing from Finland -- as Berglund does -- or another northern clime makes for a better understanding of the composer.
"That's a lot of rubbish!" Berglund says. "You cannot imagine conductors who were more Italian -- and very dramatically Italian at that -- than Toscanini or de Sabata, and they gave fantastic performances of Sibelius. You don't need to be from the place where the music was written to be able to play it."
Berglund, 65, has himself been a victim of such typecasting.
In his North American guest-conducting assignments he is often restricted to the huge post-romantic, Northern European pieces with which he is identified -- not only works by Sibelius, but also those by the Danish Carl Nielsen and by Russians such as Shostakovich and Rachmaninov.
Nevertheless, a concert two seasons back with Washington's National Symphony revealed a musician who was superbly responsive to the ardent lyric impulse of Schumann and to the endlessly inventive wit of Haydn.
Most of the time, however, Berglund hasn't had such opportunities. Moreover, he's been much undervalued by American orchestras. Although his appearances here date to 1978, it was only this season -- in a concert last fall with the New York Philharmonic -- that he broke into the ranks of this country's "big five" orchestras.
The centerpiece of that program? A Sibelius symphony, of course.
The Philharmonic immediately re-engaged Berglund. But in initial conversations about future programs with management, he says, "When we discussed things other than Sibelius or Nielsen, they weren't interested."
Berglund may be a prisoner of his own success. While many conductors are perfectly respectable interpreters of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and even Mahler, few are as persuasive with Nielsen and Sibelius.
"It's just business -- merely a question of supply and demand," the conductor says. "I don't mind being labeled as a Sibelius-Nielsen man as long as they inspire me. But that the art of music is driven by such matters nauseates me."
Berglund, currently principal conductor of the Royal Danish Orchestra, doesn't feel sorry for himself, and neither should anyone else. His guest-conducting fee is said to be about $25,000 (slightly higher than that of BSO music director David Zinman). He regularly conducts such great orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic, and he is enormously popular with Japanese audiences.
Moreover, he is genuinely passionate about Sibelius.
Berglund is old enough to have met the great composer, who died in 1957 at the age of 91, and he will never forget how that meeting came about.
For his debut with the Finnish Radio Symphony, Berglund chose Sibelius' Symphony No. 6 -- the least performed of his major works. What he didn't know at the time was that the composer was glued to his radio during the broadcast.
Sibelius must have liked what he heard; until his death he remained a faithful listener to Berglund's radio concerts.
"He invited me to visit him," Berglund says. "After every broadcast, he always sent greeting and was generous with his praise."
Berglund joined the Finnish Radio Orchestra as a 20-year-old violinist in 1949. Three years later, he and several colleagues formed the Helsinki Chamber Orchestra to broaden the scope of musical performance in the city, and he became its first conductor.
Soon after, he was appointed assistant conductor of the Radio Orchestra and was its chief conductor from 1962-72. He improved the standard of the orchestra, transforming it from a provincial ensemble into an international one. He went on to become music director of Great Britain's Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic and the Stockholm Philharmonic, winning praise for performances of the standard repertory that combined firm authority with warmly expressive feeling.
But his identification with Sibelius became all-but-indelible in 1970 when he gave the historic, first performances outside of Finland of the composer's mighty "Kullervo" symphony and made an acclaimed best-selling recording of it. He went on to record two distinguished Sibelius cycles for EMI and an equally fine Nielsen cycle for BMG/RCA Victor Red Seal.
But Berglund seems to have reached the limit of his patience where Sibelius and Nielsen are concerned. An invitation to conduct Sibelius' Fifth Symphony next season in London's Barbican Center particularly rankles.
"You can't believe the faxes and telephone calls back and forth," he says. "I tell them that I need to take a sabbatical from the Fifth; they plead with me to change my mind; I tell them that I've done it all over Britain in the last two years, including two performances in London, and that it's stupid to do it again.
"If a place thinks I'm only good for one composer," Berglund adds, "then it's a place I don't want to go."
BERGLUND CONDUCTS
What: Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
When: 8:15 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday
Where: Meyerhoff Hall
Tickets: $17-$48
Call: (410) 783-8000