Lyrics for some songs and arias
For the release in February 2016 of the CD JSP682, containing Jussi Björling’s 1959 Copenhagen concert and his 1952 Voice of Firestone broadcast, lyrics for songs and arias recorded with him are published on this website for the first time.
Lyrics are provided for all songs and arias on JSP682 except those sung in English, and for some other music performed by Björling. We hope to continue adding material. All items are first presented in the language Björling used, followed by an English translation of that text, sometimes also by a Swedish one. If he did not sing in the original language, the original text is also included.
In order to make it easy to follow the singing, the translations are as faithful as possible to the originals, disregarding meter and rhymes. An adaptation to English linguistic and poetic usage, for instance regarding word order, has of course taken place, but the overall intention is to have important words in the text in approximately the same place in the translations.
Translations © Harald Henrysson 2016. Thanks to Sue Flaster for valuable help.
Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön
L’alba separa dalla luce l’ombra