Disc 1 features 18 Arie Amorose by various composers, touchingly sung. The arrangements and the playing of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields orchestra sound anachronistic today, but they're more acceptable than the turgidly sentimental versions sung by some others of her generation. The same can be said for the excerpts from the famous Cavalli La Calisto recording with Raymond Leppard, whose treasurable Handel recordings with Baker are featured on Disc 2. These find Baker in her element, singing with fire and glorious vocalism. She's even more glorious in the Bach cantata aria with Marriner and in one of the best renditions ever made of "Dido's Lament" from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, a 1961 recording where she's brighter of voice but with a mature subtlety beyond her years. Disc Three is devoted to Viennese classics--Haydn's Arianna a Naxos and Berenice, a pair of Mozart arias, Beethoven's "Ah! Perfido", Schubert's "Ständchen" D. 920 with chorus, and an aria from his rarely heard Lazarus.

Outstanding Rameau and Gluck appear on Disc 4, but honors go to Baker's gripping Berlioz scenes with Colin Davis. She's an unforgettable Cléopâtre, brimming with passion, and an equally intense Herminie, the whole rounded off with an excerpt from Béatrice et Bénédict. The Anglo-French final disc has her Ravel (3 Mallarmé Poems and the Chansons Madécasses) along with Chausson and Delage songs, awkwardly placed alongside scenes from Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, Owen Wingrave, and Phaedra, all sung with Baker's customary passion and exemplary diction. Unless you already have most of this set in earlier incarnations, then you need this. The budget price will ease the pain of duplications and the lack of texts and translations, the latter an unforgivable obstacle to full enjoyment.