In the record library at WSND-FM at the University of Notre Dame, it was simply ROM10.
Each morning, student announcer Paul would pull the record, cue the turntable, bring the station on the air, and let the brilliant brass of Johan Helmich Roman’s Drottningholmsmusiken begin. Then, over Ulf Björlin’s recording, came the familiar words:
“Welcome to another day of broadcasting from the University of Notre Dame…”
The record was Nonesuch H-71213, Music at Drottningholm. The music had been written for a Swedish royal wedding in 1744. Somehow, more than two centuries later, it had become the soundtrack for waking up a college FM station in South Bend, Indiana.
Then the record—and even the exact piece—slipped into memory.
Nearly fifty years later, a few fragments remained: Roman. Drottningholm. Brass. Nonesuch. Ulf Björlin. ROM10.
And then the record turned up again.
This Chesterton Radio deep dive follows an extraordinary musical journey from Drottningholm Palace in 1744, through Nonesuch Records and the clock-tower studios of WSND, to the rediscovery of the actual recording in 2026.
It is a story about classical music, college radio, vinyl, memory—and what happens when an old record begins to play and suddenly a long-silent radio station comes back to life.
Listen to the original recording:
Music at Drottningholm — Nonesuch H-71213
See WSND in the 1981 Notre Dame Dome:
1981 Dome — WSND AM/FM spread
From Chesterton Radio — The Little Station on Commercial Street.
