Lohengrin

“In fernem Land”

October 3, 1952: Stockholm, Concert Hall

Swedish Radio Orchestra, cond. Sten Frykberg

Naxos 8.111083

December 20, 1954: Stockholm, Södersjukjuset

Harry Ebert, pf.

WHRA-6036

January 8, 1955: Helsinki, B-Messuhalli

Harry Ebert, pf.

August 5, 1960: Gothenburg, Concert Hall

Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, cond. Nils Grevillius

WHRA-6036

On a number of occasions, particularly in the final decade of his career, Björling expressed the desire to sing, at least on record, the title role in Lohengrin. Of all the projects that never came to fruition, this—together with the concert performance of Bellini's Il pirata he was asked to sing in 1959 (at the Carnegie Hall with Maria Callas)—was surely the one that would have proved most revelatory. As his regular accompanist Harry Ebert pointed out, Björling was “the eternally pure one.” No tenor voice on record is as well-equipped to convey the spiritual otherness of the Gralserzählung (narrative of the Grail) in which Lohengrin describes, with sublime gentleness and authority, the mystical domain of Montsalvat whence he came forth to rescue Elsa.

Of his four recordings of this solo, it is the first and last that really count, for with piano accompaniment the build-up of tension that accompanies the narration—characterized by a progressive increase in volume and density and by a gradual speeding up of the initially slow tempo (Langsam)—inevitably proves more limited in its expressive impact.