If I had to choose only one of Dame Janet Baker’s recital discs‚ it would be ‘A Pageant of English Song’. It was her first solo LP for EMI‚ issued on the mid­price HQS series. Side 1‚ in which she is 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 (EMI‚ 11/94). 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 mood changes completely‚ as the accompaniment moves from lute to harpsichord‚ with the dramatic ‘Sleep‚ Adam‚ sleep’ and the passionate ‘Lord‚ what is man?’. Singing of such directness and truthfulness needs no analysis‚ the wedding of word and music is immaculate. Three little encore pieces complete the picture‚ ‘Tell me‚ lovely shepherd’ and ‘My lovely Celia’ both with a smile of young love‚ ‘Where the bee sucks’ with a twinkle in the eye. The Scottish songs arranged by Haydn‚ recorded eight years later‚ seem rather slight in comparison. The rather coy ‘Aulde Scots’ brogue that William Napier‚ Haydn’s publisher‚ supplied him with for this commercial venture challenges any singer‚ not just to make the words comprehensible‚ but to avoid caricature. Baker is more successful with ‘John Anderson’ and ‘O can ye sew cushions’ than with the flighty ‘The white cockade’ or ‘The ploughman’. Nineteen of these arrangements one after another seem too much of a good thing to me. The five Beethoven Scottish arrangements are the best part of the 1975 session. Yehudi Menuhin seems enlivened by Beethoven’s more robust response to the old songs‚ and Ross Pople’s cello and George Malcolm’s piano accompaniments add pathos to ‘The sweetest lad was Jamie’. As for ‘Fathfu’ Johnnie’‚ with this setting it’s something 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.