Description
Dame Janet Baker needs no introduction. During her illustrious career, which spanned four decades from the 1950s to the 1980s, she was widely admired throughout the world for her dramatic intensity and musical intelligence. John Shirley-Quirk made his operatic debut at the Glyndebourne Festival in 1961, and has appeared regularly with all the major orchestras and opera companies through the world. Steuart Bedford is closely associated with the music of Britten and was an Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival between 1974 and 1998. These 46 songs arranged by Steuart Bedford in his own edition show Wolf at his most captivatingly individual, many of them brief fragments of fantasy, which call for the most intense artistry if their point is to be fully made. Dame Janet Baker ranges through all the many emotions inspired by love with searching perception. John Shirley-Quirk has a true understanding of the lyrical impulse that fills these wonderful love songs given to the male interpreter. These BBC recordings are in excellent stereo capturing the atmosphere from the Snape Maltings in June 1977 and have never been issued before.
