The Jussi Björling Society - USA is sad to bring you the news that Jussi's eldest son, Anders, has passed away, after a long illness. He was always our best friend, advising and supporting the Society in so many ways over the years. We feel a great loss.

Our tribute to Anders will appear in our next Newsletter. In the meantime, we extend our heartfelt sympathy to the Björling family.

Late Swedish Tenor's 'Vocal Velvet' Remains Indescribable in Words

By HAROLD C. SCHONBERG

How does one describe a voice? Music begins where words leave off, and our poor language is a leaden vehicle to describe the rainbow of sound. One can say about Jussi Bjoerling, who died a week ago Friday, that his voice was the greatest lyric instrument since Gigli's. But putting a finger on what constitutes that greatness is a difficult matter.

Jussi in New Zealand!

A festive celebration of the art of Jussi Björling was held on March 26th, 2021, in the beautiful Royal Akarana Yacht Club, overlooking Waitemata Harbor in Auckland, New Zealand.

The event was organized by opera and concert singer Heather Pascual, a long-time admirer of Björling. Quoting her from the printed program: “It has been a dream of mine for some time to hold a celebration of the great Swedish tenor, as well as support the Kiwi Music Scholarship Trust … This evening is about bringing that dream to fruition.”

The Jussi Björling Museum Closes in Borlänge, Sweden - Dismantled

”To the Members and Friends of JBS-USA:

It is with great sadness that I forward to you the following news from Borlänge, Sweden.

The Town of Borlänge has now announced that it will empty the building which has held the Jussi Björling Museum for the last 26 years by March 1 of this year.”

Revisiting Jussi's Last New York Recital

by Janel E. Lundgren and Dan Shea

From Jussi by Anna-Lisa Björling, Andrew Farkas (Amadeus Press, 1996, page 327):

"Jussi closed the autumn tour with a recital at Hunter College on 27 December 1959. His popularity and drawing power were such that he and Schauwecker had been invited back for this 'concert extraordinary' only nine months after their previous appearance. It was a capacity house; many people had to be seated on the stage behind him, but as always, Jussi sang at least one number or a couple of encores facing them. Cornell MacNeil recalls the night, the last time he heard Jussi sing.

A Voice Lesson with Jussi

by Arthur H. Patrick Darrow

In February, 1950, at the age of 19, I had the experience of my life up to that date.  I met Jussi Björling. For the previous ten years I had been an admirer of Jussi, but it never occurred to me that I would ever meet him.

By the time I was twelve years old, I had a lot of songs and arias memorized from listening to the Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts on radio.  I sang along with them, mostly the tenors and baritones, fascinated by the sounds of the voices. I sang along with Jussi. By the age of nineteen, I was fairly well-versed in opera.  I'd gone to a concert in Kansas City in 1948 or 1949 and had seen a performance by Jussi.

Breathtaking Vocalism in Jussi’s Finest Wartime Concert, November 10, 1944

By Stephen Hastings

A majority of the surviving live recordings from the first half of Jussi Björling’s adult career (1929-1945) derive from the Swedish Radio Archive.  Taken as a whole these recordings reveal a tenor of captivating musicality, impressive technical resources and rare tonal purity, whose emotionally spontaneous phrasing is only occasionally marred by verbal slips when he sings in Italian. 

Jussi in Carnegie Hall

by Kjell Olsson
Carnegie Hall, the legendary concert hall in New York City, celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2016.  Jussi Björling appeared there sixteen times during the years 1937-1959. Ten of these performances are recorded at least in part, and released on CD. It was at Carnegie Hall that Jussi made his US debut as a tenor November 28, 1937, an appearance which opened the way for a contract at the Metropolitan and access to the US public.

The city's most famous concert venue, was opened in 1891 funded by financier and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. At the opening ceremony, Peter Tchaikovsky appeared as guest conductor. The house now has several concert halls: the main hall holds about 2800 seats. For over a century, it has been one of the world's most famous musical institutions for both classical, jazz and popular music and about 250 performances take place here each season. Here all the great legendary opera singers have performed, among them Enrico Caruso, Beniamino Gigli, Jussi Björling, Maria Callas, Lily Pons, Renata Tebaldi, Leontyne Price, Montserrat Caballé, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti.

An Appraisal of the Vocal Art of Jussi Björling

By Vsevolod Vasilievich Timokhin
(A chapter from Mastera Vokal’nogo Iskusstva XX veka [Masters of theVocal Art of the Twentieth Century], Moscow, 1974, pp. 72-85.)

The countries of Scandinavia have given the world of vocal art many names which have achieved world renown. What music lover does not know about the “Swedish Nightingale,” Jenny Lind, who was one of the greatest singers of the Nineteenth Century? Or about those other artists, Patti’s rivals, Christine Nilsson and Sigrid Arnoldson? Or about the famous Finnish singer Alma Fohström, who performed for many years on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow? In our century many Scandinavian singers have achieved international fame; but it is interesting to note that almost all of them were adherents of the German, principally Wagnerian, vocal school. We have but to remember the names of the Danes Peter Cornelius and Lauritz Melchior, the Swedish artists Birgit Nilsson, Karin Branzell, Set Svanholm, Joel Berglund, Nanny Larsén-Todsen, and Kerstin Thorborg, the Norwegians Kirsten Flagstad and Ivar Andresen, the Finns Martti Talvela and Tom Krause…. Some of them studied with students of the German school who were working in Stockholm and Copenhagen; others themselves went to Germany or Austria to study. It must be remembered that many of the severe epic Wagnerian music dramas have something in common with the traditions and legends of the northern lands, and therefore the emotional atmosphere of these dramas could not but find a response in the soul of a person who was brought up amidst cliffs, lakes, and fiords.

Singing From The Heart Kissed By The Gods: A Remembrance of the Tenor Jussi Björling

By Jürgen Kesting
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 8, 2000.

Ever more frequently the work of record companies results in damage to the legacy of their artists. A current example is a so-called "Ultimate Collection" published by RCA/BMG in the "Artists of the Century" series, marking the death forty years ago (on September 9, 1960) of Swedish tenor Jussi Björling at the age of 49.

The word "Edition" is inappropriate for this mean and indiscriminately cobbled-together collection, comprised of some technically grotesquely-distorted recordings which are falsely dated or not dated at all. They distort and disfigure the image of one of the most brilliant tenors of the twentieth century whom RCA can thank for ten complete opera performances, classics all.Il Trovatore, Manon Lescaut and Aïda are vocally unequalled; Cavalleria, Pagliacci andTurandot are outstanding.

Jussi Björling: The Supreme Singing of a Shy Man

By Stephen Hastings

On September 9 1960 the newstands of Stockholm were plastered with the news “Jussi död i morse” (Jussi dead this morning). It is rare for newspapers to call an opera singer by his Christian name, but then Björling's relationship with Sweden was a very special one. It had begun forty-five years earlier, when his father David Björling - also a tenor - decided to take little Jussi (born on February 5, 1911) on tour with his brothers Gösta and Olle. The “Björling Male Quartet” could not fail to win audiences over, with the boys dressed in traditional costumes singing music (including compositions by David Björling and the Swedish national anthem) calculated to move. Yet the quartet's survival for twelve years (they remained active until 1927, a year after the father's death), and the success of their United States tour (during which they made six acoustic recordings for Columbia) were attributable to less ephemeral qualities: the uniqueness of the “Björling sound” that the boys had inherited from their father and grandfather, and the superior quality of their musical and vocal training, described by David in a booklet entitled “How to Sing”.