The reader's eye probably travels quickly over the title information above but rests with some wonder on the four last items, dated 1920. Apparently that dating is itself a little speculative, but the recordings must have been made during the period 1919 to 1921, when Father Bjorling and three young sons toured the United States. They dressed for their concerts in national costume and sang mostly to Scandinavian audiences, the boys being praised for their powerful voices and professionalism on stage. One can only hope that their programmes included some more entertaining music than the pieces they recorded. These are slow, uneventful and, until the last, sung in a loud unison. This last, a setting of the Fourth Psalm, is the interesting one because, in it, we are almost certainly hearing young Jussi aged nine. It is not easy to be sure, but it seems that the boys take a solo each in turn: the first voice is very pure, relatively light in tone-quality, and sounds like the youngest, the second is stronger, more heroic half-way-to-tenor already; the third (if indeed it is a different voice that sings the final and low-pitched solo phrases) sounds perhaps a little less secure. Jussi was the middle son in age, and it would be nice if that meant that his was the tenor-like, forcefully projected voice. Is it possible that marked copies of the music have survived, or that someone could authoritatively identify the voice?
Anyway: from last track to first. This is Vladimir's cavatina in Prince Igor, recorded in the same month of 1933 in which the young tenor, already nearly three years on from his debut, sang the role at the opera's Swedish premiere. It was his first operatic recording (assuming the solos from The Violet of Montmartre and so forth to be classifiable as operetta), and also one of his very last, beautifully sung in the concert of July 28th, 1960, at Gruna Lunds (RCA—nla). The main difference is that in 1960 he finished the aria with a head-note, whereas in 1933 he sang a not entirely comfortable mezzo forte. Both performances represent the best of him, and it is most moving to pass from one to the other, spanning the illustrious career in between.
Otherwise, there is much here to enjoy for its own sake, irrespective of rarity. Most are first 'takes', where the published one is the second. An exception is the Siciliana from Cavalleria rusticana sung to an Italian (rather than Sicilian) text: that is the second. The Trovatore recordings are a year earlier in date than the published versions, and it is interesting to compare the two performances of ''Ah si, ben mio'', the earlier published here I believe for the first time, being rather more 'addressed' with a clean approach to the A flat on ''trafitto'' (there's a slight 'lift' in the later 1939 version—EMI (CD) CDH7 61053-2, 10/88) and a rather beautiful quiet ending. Duets with Schymberg and Bjorling's wife, Anne-Lisa, are also worth hearing: the Swedish songs (Little princess and so forth) are probably not.'