Janet Baker: A Celebration CD / Box Set

Dame Janet Baker is an artist who enjoyed seldom-matched success in the concert and recital halls as well as in the opera house - not to mention on disc. She 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. This 21-CD limited edition collects together all the great British mezzo-soprano's Philips, L'Oiseau-Lyre, Argo, Hyperion and Deutsche Grammophon recitals, as well as significant excerpts from Bach, Handel and Mozart operas and oratorios. Appearing for the first time, complete, are three Philips recordings made with Raymond Leppard - a Handel recital framed around the composer's cantata La Lucrezia (1972), Haydn heroines Berenice and Arianna, coupled with music by Mozart (1973), and a Beethoven/Schubert recital (1976). The collection also includes three recital discs she recorded for Hyperion of music by Schubert, Mahler and Fauré.