JUSSI BJORLING : HIS FIRST AND LAST RECORDINGS : NEW RESTORATIONS : COLOURIZED PHOTOS

For those not familiar with Jussi Bjorling, he was born in 1911 in Sweden and throughout his career he was regarded as one of the world's greatest tenors and even today many still rate him as the best ever. He made many wonderful recordings, mostly operatic but many others of different genres. Unfortunately, on 9th September 1960, just over one month after the concert on this video was recorded, he suffered a heart attack and died at the age of just 49. 0:00 Interview 1959 0:49 I himmelen (Trad) : The Bjorling Male Quartet (with brothers Olle & Gösta) Rec Feb 1920? (Jussi aged 9) 3:54 Torna a Surriento (De Curtis) : Rec 4th Sept 1929 ( aged 18) 7:22 Last known interview Rec 5th July 1960 for Swedish Radio Jussi Bjorling's last recording : 5th August1960, Gothenburg, Concert Hall. Swedish Radio concert. With Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, cond. Nils Grevillius. (Live broadcast) Some sources give a different order for the pieces but this is the order given in the Jussi Bjorling Society of Sweden website which, I think, will be correct. 9:53 Säv, säv, susa (Sibelius) 12:40 Svarta rosor (Sibelius) 15:09 Skogen sover (Alfvén) 12:40 Jag längtar dig (Alfvén) 20:19 Lensky's Aria: Kuda, kuda [ Förbi, förbi] (Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin) 27:14 Donna non vidi mai (Puccini: Manon Lescaut) 29:59 In fernem Land [ I fjärran land] (Wagner: Lohengrin) Unfortunately the audio quality isn't very good on any of the recordings but, of course, they are still well worth listening to. The first, from 1920, was recorded by purely mechanical means, five years before electrical equipment such as microphones was used in recording studios. I haven't had time to give translations to English but I'll try to add them at a later date.