BBC Legends: Janet Baker (2003)

'There can be no more golden a legend than Janet Baker singing English song; and this latest BBC Legend a live recital from the 1983 Cheltenham Festival is, as ever, an invaluable supplement to the artists studio and commercial recordings. Here are true classics such as Bakers performance of Vaughan Williamss Linden Lea, her Britten folksong arrangements and her Peter Warlock all superbly remastered and restored to all but live, real presence. At the heart of the recital comes some timely centenary Lennox Berkeley: his WH Auden settings, sung here in honour of the composers 80th birthday, and revealing once again that bright re-energising of the poetrys unique weight and measure. And then Finzis Let Us Garlands Bring. Scarcely has any composer since the first Elizabethans been more intimately attuned to Shakespeares sensibility; and Baker herself sings the settings with robust, red-blooded empathy. (Hilary Finch, www.classical-music.com).