Janet Baker: A Celebration (21CD BoxSet)

This collection brings together a wide range of recordings by an artist who won equal and rarely matched success in the concert and recital halls as well as in the opera house – not to mention on disc. Dame Janet Baker could confidently traverse the entire territory between the well-thumbed volumes of arie antiche through the inexhaustible repertoires of German lieder, the French mélodie and English song, all of them addressed with extraordinary interpretative completeness.

Of contemporary composers with whom she worked, undoubtedly the most important relationship was with Benjamin Britten who created numerous roles for her. In 1970 she was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). More honours followed – Dame Commander (DBE) in 1976 and member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 1993. Her command of language was legion. “She was, in all the languages she sang, one of the most thrilling and electrifying of word-singers, one whose command of vowels and consonants most illuminated what word-singing can be and why it matters,” wrote Max Loppert.