John Forsell sings Ture Rangström: Sommarnatten (Summernight)

The excellent bass-baritone and teacher of Jussi Björling and Set Svanholm, John Forsell, sings a beautiful little piece by Swedish composer Ture Rangström.

[@deutschefach]

Awesome recording! It shows very clearly his approach to singing. I love the way he avoids over covering. He flows his voice and he is a master of starting with just the vocal folds together. He is uses the falsetto accomodato. This is the secret of Gigli too. What is great is one can hear he opened his lower tones or sang them more clearly or brilliantly. One gets lucky and every once in a great while one can hear how a great singer and teacher sang and taught. A throat can only supply so much resistance to the air...the trick is for the singer to vary the compression rather than radically adjusting throat resistance. He does this well. With the training Björling got from Gilis Brod later he had both this fluid quality and could manage more heft without tightening.
What a great, great recording of a song most people would easily overlook but shouldn't.

[@AfroPoli]

Completely agree with you. Forsell was a master. His other student, Set Svanholm, actually critisized Björling for over-covering when Björling started to sing more dramatic parts around 1950. Svanholm did not cover too much (check out his Esultate from Otello), he is true to the Forsell school in that regard.

[@westlin6568]

Thank you.