There ought to be at
least two markets for this disc of numbers
sung by a great tenor who died forty
four years ago: the considerable global
band of fans of Jussi Björling,
and the much larger group of people
that inhabit the world of pop classics
and, specifically, the sub-genre of
the 19th century Italian operatic tenor
aria.
Björling made
an enormous number of recordings and
many of these have appeared and reappeared
on several different labels. Typical
recent recyclings include ASV’s Nessun
Dorma and Other Favourites,
RCA’s Jussi
Björling Rediscovered
and EMI Classics’ The
Very Best of Jussi
Björling (note the
word "very", implying that
there is a great deal of just plain
"best" around).
So what can justify
this recycling from Naxos? Well Naxos
can usually be relied upon to produce,
in their various "Historical"
series, intelligently packaged, representative
discs of artists’ work. Here we have
volume 3 in a series that charts Björling’s
recording career more or less chronologically.
Volume
1 includes early recordings from
aged nineteen (1930) onwards at a time
when he sang a varied repertoire in
his native Swedish whereas in this volume
3 we hear him coming into his own, and
his prime, with the body of work that
he mostly settled with – 19th century
Italian opera. Having said that, five
of the twenty three numbers are not
Italian and he sings Bizet, Massenet
and Gounod in authentic French. The
"Pays merveilleux" aria from
L’Africaine, a French grand opera
composed by a German, he sings disconcertingly
in Italian but does so superbly with
thrilling dramatic conviction. Overall
it is possible to discern an increasing
confidence, security and maturing of
voice. Another factor that distinguishes
this latest disc is that it does contain,
by any standards, a high concentration
of very popular Italian arias starting
with the inevitable "Your tiny
hand is frozen", wonderfully paced
up to the high note, followed by the
famous "Celeste Aida" with
its controlled lyricism, again immaculately
paced to the upper notes, immediately
followed by "La donna e mobile".
The latter has a real swagger to it,
more zesty than what I remember of the
Caruso 78rpm recording that I used to
play on a wind-up gramophone as a child
– until I knelt on the record and broke
it.
So on the whole, this
disc does represent "the
best" of Jussi Björling, both
in vocal and interpretive terms, and
as far as the selections are concerned.
It is worth returning to these well
known numbers just to hear a voice of
great distinction which provides an
alternative to that of the great Italian
tenor voices of the 20th century with
their characteristic indigenous edge,
from Caruso to Pavarotti. In Puccini’s
"Nessun dorma" there is even
a chance to compare Björling with
the man who made this aria, thanks to
soccer, by far the world’s most famous
operatic aria. Those who have assumed
that Pavarotti leaves everyone else
out of sight in this one may get a shock
when they hear Jussi Björling’s
recording made 46 years before Pavarotti’s
ubiquitous Italian World Cup rendering.
I suggested this disc
deserves to do well in the pop classic
market but there is the drawback of
a recorded sound over half a century
old. There are two points I would like
to make. First, the sound is remarkably
good under the circumstances – not over-filtered,
so immediacy is maintained. The extraordinary
degree of dynamic range in, for example,
Massenet’s Manon is not only
a tribute to Björling’s
vocal control but also to the skills
of Naxos’s sound recorder, Stefan Lindstrőm.
Second, there is no sense that artist
and orchestras are simply going through
the studio motions just to fulfil the
demands of a lucrative recording contract
which is exactly what I felt in the
case of a recent recital disc of popular
items sung by contemporary tenor pin-up,
Roberto Alagna. In comparison Björling
sounds excitingly fresh and committed.
The
disc is enriched by a couple of well
known duets from La Bohème
and Rigoletto with Hjördis
Schymberg, Björling’s long standing
operatic, soprano partner.
John Leeman
Jussi
Björling (tenor) with Hjördis Schymberg
(soprano)