It gives me real pleasure to accept the invitation of the Editor to write some personal reminiscences of the late Jussi Björling. I knew Jussi Björling intimately for many years and had a great admiration for him not only as a singer but as a man. His death at the comparatively early age of 49 was a catastrophe.

Jussi came from a very musical family. His father was not only a tenor, but a singer good enough to sing Rodolfo in La bohème at the Metropolitan Opera, New York at the turn of the century. His mother was a pianist, his two brothers tenors, and he married a soprano who combined the virtues of being a good singer, a beautiful and charming woman, the mother of three attractive children and, as he told me less than a year ago, Jussi’s ‘sternest critic’.

In addition to all these natural advantages Jussi was given one of the most beautiful voices of his generation and a very sound musical education. Not only did he graduate from the Royal Conservatoire of Music at Stockholm after a full study of the foundations of music and the compulsory study of one instrument (in his case the piano) but he received in addition a thorough operatic coaching from a great singer and teacher, John Forsell. All this gave refinement to his art.

While Jussi was studying at the Conservatoire, he was like most students, often short of cash and he told me that one of the ways in which he used to earn small sums was to sing the vocal refrains for a local dance band and, in fact, the first records which he ever made were with the band, singing under the assumed name of ‘Eric Odde’. 

Today, unfortunately, after an initial success, many singers with naturally beautiful voices are rushed in a half-trained state through a packed programme of operatic, concert and gramophone activities (possibly supplemented by films and television) to their ultimate destruction. Jussi Björling, happily, was allowed to continue his progress in an orderly fashion in Stockholm, singing the light tenor roles – Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Arnoldo in William Tell and Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville – which tradition demanded before he received a regular contract at the Opera House in 1929.

It was not, in fact, until six years later, in 1935, that he stepped for the first time onto the stage of one of the great opera houses – the State Opera, Vienna, to sing Radames in Aida. This was really the beginning of his great career. The conductor was Victor de Sabata, the Aida, Gina Cigna and the Amneris, Kirsten Thorberg. Although his voice and art had been allowed to mature to the point at which he could hold his own in a major opera house, Jussi Björling still sang his role in his native Swedish whereas the rest of the cast sang in Italian. Jussi Björling had a profound admiration for his great predecessor, Beniamino Gigli. I often discussed with Gigli the causes for the decline in singing standards which have affected many, but of course by no means all, contemporary operatic singers and the reasons for their rapid decline and disappearance. He always attributed the cause to two factors, firstly the acceptance of parts too heavy for the voice at its stage of development and secondly lack of training. I remember very well what he said to me during one of our last talks together, ‘I spent four years singing in provincial opera houses before I set foot on the stage of La Scala and then I sang the comparatively light part of Faust in Boito’s Mefistofele, with Toscanini as conductor’. Four years and Toscanini, and in Jussi’s case six years and De Sabata.

After this appearance in Vienna engagements followed thick and fast – Trovatore at Covent Garden, again with Gina Cigna, with Vittorio Gui conducting, then the Verdi Requiem at Lucerne with Toscanini. These performances finally established him as a great international singer.

Thereafter he remained at the top of the tree, singing to packed houses, receiving great ovations and the most intoxicating adulation. He was made a Doctor of Music and a Royal Court singer in his own country and received 14 other decorations. In his later years he was one of the few performers who could fill the Royal Albert Hall with the slender support of a piano accompanist. When he returned to the Metropolitan Opera last year a critic wrote, ‘Few Caesars returning to Rome after a triumphant campaign can have ever received a greater ovation than Jussi Björling last night.’

How did he stand up to this? The answer is that to his dying day he remained what he had been at the start, a conscientious musician often doubtful of his abilities (as the great musicians always are), an absolutely unspoilt and charming man with a great sense of fun and a father devoted to his talented family. ‘You must have some children to get the best out of this life’ was one of the last serious remarks he made to me only a few months ago.

Of course, he was far too intelligent not to realise his high place in the musical world, but he had that strong strain of self criticism and humility which goes with the greatest artistry.

I had proof of this on many occasions, sometimes to my embarrassment. A few years ago, knowing that he had sung Massenet’s Manon at the Metropolitan Opera with great success, I engaged him on behalf of HMV to record the part for us in Paris in a complete recording of the opera under that great veteran Pierre Monteux, who had also conducted for him in New York. Less than a month before the starting date he sent a message from Stockholm that he wished to cancel the engagement. 1 enquired why and he said that he believed he would not make a success of it. Nothing would shake him in this belief (which was not shared by Pierre Monteux or anyone else) so we were forced to engage a young French tenor of the Opéra-Comique [Henri Legay] who, I am happy to say, did very well. Months later, Björling said to me, ‘I’m sorry I let you down over Manon but I have never sung in Paris and on reflection I was sure that it would be better for you to get a Frenchman.’

He was a short and not very commanding figure on the operatic stage, and he knew it. I asked him if he had ever sung Lohengrin, and I had a reason for asking. He said not. I asked why, because with his great beauty of voice, sense of style, knowledge of German and musicianship, there was no reason why musically, in spite of his lack of stature, he should not have been a great Lohengrin. ‘How could I ever fight a battle of broadswords and win?’ he replied. I told him that for recording this was an inadequate excuse and that Sir Thomas Beecham had talked of recording the work for years and believed that he would be the ideal protagonist. ‘Oh, if he is going to conduct I’ll start to study it tomorrow’ was his immediate response. I don’t know if he ever began but alas it is now too late.

I am very proud that I played a part in bringing Sir Thomas, Jussi Björling and Victoria de los Angeles together for the recording of La bohème in New York in April 1956. It turned out to be a great success and judging by sales, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, success of its kind in the history of the gramophone industry.

Björling’s last recording for HMV was Madama Butterfly, made in Rome last year. He had had heart trouble before he started and he had a minor heart attack in the middle of the sessions. I offered to suspend the recording but he would not hear of it. ‘Give me a couple of days and I shall be fine again,’ he said, and so he proved to be, and sang at the top of his form to the end.

My recollections of him will always centre round two occasions, neither of them musical.

The first was after a luncheon which my wife, Gioconda de Vito, gave for Victoria de los Angeles and her husband and Mr and Mrs Björling last year in Rome, when we sat together after the meal for several hours in the tranquility of her flat at the top of a block on the outskirts of the city, watching the changing colours on the Roman hills, while the talk of these old friends played over a great field of subjects, some serious, mostly gay and some farcical, and we made plans for recordings which will now never take place.

The second and last occasion was at a dinner party given in Jussi’s honour in Stockholm last November by some very wealthy Swedish friends. The setting and company were worthy of the occasion, Jussi’s impending return to the Metropolitan. It was a fabulous house with pictures ranging from a superb Holbein to a celebrated Rembrandt and a charming Filippo Lippi to a delightful Brueghel – a beautiful dining-room with a set of sixteen Hepplewhite chairs and plates to match and a company that included all the most distinguished in Swedish artistic life. Jussi had given that afternoon an incomparable performance in Manon Lescaut at a gala performance at the Stockholm Opera House and we had gathered to celebrate the occasion. My final recollection of him, and the last time that I saw him, is replying to the toast, surrounded by happy and admiring faces in his native land – and who could ask for anything better?

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