Jussi Björling was among the best of the great tenors of the past century, and his recordings, both studio and live, have been available in a plethora of LP and CD releases. Still, this Naxos release is very welcome indeed, for its attractive budget price and especially since its title suggests a complete edition. The more people are exposed to Björling’s immediately identifiable, incomparable voice, the better. Naxos’ Volume 1 includes his complete opera and operetta recordings in Swedish between 1930 (when he was only 20!) and 1938. The earliest tracks feature a full-throated tenor reveling in his voice and in the act of singing. Later ones retain those qualities and add more subtlety and a stronger tinge of poignancy along with a larger measure of the aristocratic elegance that became one of his most distinguishing characteristics. Thus his 1930 “Ah, lève-toi soleil” from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette isn’t quite as eloquent or as poignant as his 1945 recording. Other selections from the early ’30s exhibit the raw exuberance of youth–heard in the cackle he interpolates into the 1930 “Questo e quella” from Verdi’s Rigoletto, an affectation mercifully missing from his later renditions.
Some of the lighter fluff, such as the song from Abraham’s operetta Flower from Hawaii (!), is pretty awful except for the singing, but selections from Victor Herbert, Kalman, Romberg, Lehár, and Viennese staples are marked by Björling’s sensitivity and his drop-dead gorgeous voice. On two duets, by Strauss and Millöcker, he’s gloriously partnered by soprano Hjördis Schymberg. Those who have trouble with “wrong language” recordings should find their objections minimalized since Swedish is eminently adaptable to French, German, and even Italian texts. That point is amply proved in Björling’s 1938 “Au mont Ida” from Offenbach’s La belle Hélène, one of the all-time great tenor performances and alone worth far more than the modest cost of this disc.
Transfers are credited to Hans G. Trädgärdh and Stefan Lindström, making this the first volume I’ve come across in Naxos’ Great Singers series that has not been transferred by Ward Marston or Mark Obert-Thorn (who did an earlier Björling Opera Aria disc). The change is discernible in the peaky treble that, while not fatal, is fatiguing on several tracks. For example, it makes listening to selections such as “E lucevan le stelle” at anything above moderate volume something of a trial. If your collection includes Björling’s recordings from this period, you probably won’t need to replace them with this disc, but you may want to buy a few to give to your closest friends. [11/30/2002]
