This is a review for The Record Collector (http://www.therecordcollector.org/) which was published in a somewhat abbreviated version in its September 2016 issue (Vol.61 No.3), p.199-200. There has now been a second issue from the tape collection mentioned at the end of the review: JSP 683 devoted to Marian Anderson’s 1961 Copenhagen concert, plus her concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial 1939.
Complete concert at Falkonercentret, Copenhagen, 15 October 1959: 16 arias and songs, with Bertil Bokstedt, pf. And bonus: complete Voice of Firestone broadcast 10 March 1952: 6 arias and songs plus announcements. JSP records (www.jsprecords.com) JSP 682 28 tracks 68 mins.
TEXT: Nils-Göran Olve
He is in exceptionally good voice, not least if we remember that he had to be hospitalized for his heart condition during his final operatic recording just a few weeks earlier (Madama Butterfly for EMI in Rome), and would die from it less than a year later. During that year he would return twice to the US for his final performances at the Met and the San Francisco Opera, and he would sing in opera in Stockholm and London, and several more concerts. The context for the recital is given in the exceptionally detailed annotations by Harald Henrysson, Stephen Hastings and others that together with 15 illustrations make up the 24-page booklet – valuable in itself for us Jussi fans. Fortsätt läsa ”JUSSI BJÖRLING: Copenhagen concert 1959”