Customer Reviews

Haydn, Beethoven: Scottish Folk Song Arrangements (H.31a;Op.108,etc.) / English Songs

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Janet Baker first made a splash, in 1964, with an anthology of English songs released on Saga, a small obscure label. She was 31, and her accompanist, Martin Isepp, was the husband of her voice teacher. the remarkable qualities of her voice and interpretation were not lost on anyone, and she soon had a contract with EMI. She kept singing English songs, and I was enraptured by every new release -- I was in college at the time. To this day I can relive the experience of hearing her sing Purcell's two astonishing religious songs, "sleep, Adam, and take thy rest" and "Lord, What is man?" The reissue label, Testament, has assembled a long CD from her various EMI collections from those years up to 1975. Everything is great, but 39 songs are too much for one sitting.

To explain in detail what is on this program, I can't do better than to quote the Gramophone, and to say that no lover of Baker's art in native song should miss this example, made largely in her vocal prime.

"'A Pageant of English Song' was Baker's first solo LP for EMI. Side 1, in which she's accompanied by Martin Isepp and Robert Spencer, is reissued on this CD. Side 2, with Gerald Moore at the piano, can be heard on a double CD on EMI. Dame Janet was at the beginning of the high summer of her career when this was recorded in 1967.
Every recital, concert appearance or opera role was an event. In the first song, Dowland's 'Come againe', each word is given the perfect weight, with beautiful touches on the repeated 'I sit, I sigh, I weep, I faint, I die'. The jolly 'Never love unlesse you can', the melancholy 'Oft have I sigh'd' and the coquettish 'Faine would I wed' each has its own 'face', Baker finding just the right expression in her voice. The Scottish songs arranged by Haydn, recorded eight years later, seem rather slight in comparison.
Nineteen of these arrangements one after another seem rather too much of a good thing.
The five Beethoven Scottish arrangements are the best part of the 1975 session. 'Fathfu' Johnnie' is a setting to place beside any great song of the same period. The recording seems to favour the instrumentalists somewhat, whereas in the 1967 selections, Baker's voice is always fresh and forward."