Here we have the majority
of Björling's studio recordings
of Lieder, collected on one well-filled
CD. There were a couple of Swedish songs
recorded in 1940, but otherwise this
covers his output in the field. To most
listeners Björling's name is synonymous
with opera but, as Harald Henrysson
mentions in his as usual very well-written
and illuminating booklet text, from
his American debut in 1937 until his
death in 1960 he gave about 900 concerts
compared to around half that amount
of opera performances. His repertoire
was not very large but it encompassed
several important song composers and
he often sang Richard Strauss, Schubert,
the Nordic giants Grieg and Sibelius
and some Swedish composers, represented
here by Carl Sjöberg, whose Tonerna
was a favourite and often sung as an
encore. Some of the songs he recorded
more than once - there are also live
recordings of many of them. It is interesting
to compare Morgen on this disc, first
recorded in 1939 when he was still in
his twenties, and then a version from
1952 when he was at the height of his
powers. The early version is much more
inward and he sings delicious pianissimos
in long, unbroken phrases. The 1952
version is more authoritative and also
much more full-throated. It is a more
mature artist, but one who has lost
a little of the joy of discovery. He
can still sing a wonderful piano, but
he doesn't caress the phrases as he
did back in 1939. On the other hand
he makes a real show-piece out of Cäcilie
in 1939: this is the young star tenor
with glowingly powerful and yet elegant
high notes. The ideal balance he finds
in Beethoven's Adelaide, from the same
session and this is a much-admired version,
maybe the most perfect ever committed
to disc as pure singing. The only comparable
recording I know is Fritz Wunderlich's.
Just listen to the end of the song.
It is alone worth the price of the disc.
In Schubert's Ständchen
there is very little to choose between
the two versions, recorded 12 years
apart, but it is remarkable how well
he has preserved the youthfulness of
the voice in the later recording. Sibelius's
Black roses also invites comparison,
the 1952 version more restrained. Both
this and the companion song from the
1940 sessions, Säv, säv, susa,
belonged to Björling's favourites;
he sang them both at his very last concert
on August 5, 1960 in Gothenburg, just
weeks before his untimely death. This
concert was recorded by Swedish Radio
and later released on LP by RCA.
Most of the present
disc is occupied by the 16 songs he
recorded in New York on April 4, 1952
which were released on LP as "Jussi
Björling in Song". I have owned
the original LP for more than 40 years
and played it innumerable times. What
perplexed me at first when playing the
CD was that the order of the songs was
different from the LP, but a check with
Harald Henrysson, curator of the Jussi
Björling Museum and the annotator
of this release, quickly revealed that
the CD presents the songs in the order
they were recorded. It is indeed stunning
to listen through the session and hear
the same freshness of voice, the same
smooth pianissimos and the same shine
to the top notes from beginning to end.
No tiring at all through what must have
been a very long session. Having played
the LP maybe not regularly in later
years but often enough there were no
revelations hearing it in the new format,
but a few random notes from my note-pad,
besides what I have already said in
this review, may be of interest:-
Listen to Tonerna,
how he floats his tone in a ravishing
pianissimo. This is to my mind his finest
recording of the song, which he recorded
again in 1957 with orchestra. Sjöberg
was an amateur composer, working as
a doctor in the little town of Hedemora
just 40 kilometers south of Björling's
birth place and also the town from where
another important Swedish singer came,
the mezzo-soprano Kerstin Thorborg.
I think it is true
to say that Björling always felt
most at home when he sang in his native
Swedish, there is a deeper identification
in the Sjöberg and Sibelius songs
and also in the two Grieg songs, Norwegian
being very close to Swedish. He was
always careful with words but when singing
in German or any other language, except
possibly Italian, there is an ever so
slight feeling of the thinnest of veils
between the singer and the microphone.
But that apart, listen to Wanderers
Nachtlied and there is the most lovely
pianissimo, while Die böse Farbe
is full-throated, impressively so, but
maybe not quite in tune with the mood
of the song. The very last song, Die
Forelle, is elegant and flexible, maybe
mirroring Björling's interest in
fishing. Listen also to Tosti's Ideale.
This was the final song on the original
LP and the last note, again so ravishing,
was always what lingered in my memory
long after I had put the record back
on its shelf.
The accompaniments
are not more than ordinary and Jussi
Björling may not have been an ideal
Lieder singer in the sense that Fischer-Dieskau,
Schwarzkopf or Peter Schreier were/are
with their inflexions of the texts,
but as pure singing of wonderful songs
this is still hard to beat. Stefan Lindström's
restorations are made with care and
respect for the original sound; there
is some background noise to allow Jussi's
voice to sound as natural as possible,
but never obtrusive in any way. Strongly
recommended to all of you who, like
me, have worn out the LP, to all of
you who still regard Jussi as an opera
tenor only and to anyone who likes wonderful
singing.
Göran Forsling
Jussi Björling (tenor), Harry Ebert (piano
- 1-8), Frederick Schauwecker (piano - 9-24)
