Jussi Bjorling: Collection Vol. 5: Lieder and Songs (1939-1952)

"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, MusicWeb International, April 2005