CD: Bryn Terfel, various artists: A Song in My Heart

Back in the days when the bass-baritone Bryn Terfel sported long hair, one of my Olsson's colleagues took one look at the cover photograph of the latest Terfel CD and deadpanned, "Hey, Meat Loaf has a classical album." You can make the case for or against the baritone's resemblance to the former Marvin Aday -- yes, the guy who brought us "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," among other rock classics -- but no one would confuse the two when it comes to actual musical output. Terfel has been journeying through the classical baritone's repertoire and has proven how exciting it all can be.

In his most recent album, A Song in My Heart, we finally have a collection that begins to do justice to a rich and varied career. It's a reasonably priced two-disc set, almost two and a half hours of music, and filled with an astonishing selection of material. I can rattle off a roster of composers -- Hector Berlioz, Gustav Mahler, John Rutter, Robert Schumann, Arthur Sullivan, Giuseppe Verdi -- and caution you that that's merely a partial list.

This is as broad a collection as you are going to find for a vocal artist. Folk songs, lieder, arias, hymns, and show tunes are all here, and as you would expect, the mood, arrangement, and participating artists vary. Sometimes there's just a piano paired with that beauteous baritone, particularly with the lieder, including Schumann's setting of Heinrich Heine's "Du bist wie eine Blume" -- coincidentally, the very first German-language poem I ever learned by heart.

Sometimes orchestras and choruses appear: How could anyone perform "They Call the Wind Maria" without a stalwart chorus of men? Then there are the duets: Thomas Allen is Jack Point to Terfel's Wilfred Shadbolt in a selection from The Yeomen of the Guard, and the vivacious mezzo Cecilia Bartoli partners Terfel for "Il core vi dono, bell'idolo mio" from Cosi fan tutte. Alas, no one thought to include texts in the liner notes!

Perhaps you won't particularly miss the texts, as Terfel has not only developed that radiant, supple voice but also good diction and linguistic versatility. It is a pleasure to hear him sing in German, for instance, and of course he's a natural for both English- and Welsh-language hymns and folk songs.

This album actually includes two performances of "Amazing Grace," and it's the second, simpler version -- one featured on the British TV show Songs of Praise -- that I regard as the real find. The performance is stripped down to voice and guitar, free of embellishment, and possesses a disarming purity and humility. The song closes out the second disc, which is just as well, as all I wanted to do was to either keep silent or play that track again. Yes, it is possible for an American to hear "Amazing Grace" as though for the first time.

In fact, Terfel is disarmingly at ease with the American idiom. His wistful, Celtic-influenced reading of "Shenandoah" could inspire you to embark on a road trip across Virginia (Senators James Webb and John Warner, call your offices!), and his interpretation of "Deep River" proves similarly moving.

You'd be disappointed -- and rightly so -- if the album didn't include a tip of the hat to the rich tradition of Welsh male choirs. Set your mind at rest; we've got the lullaby "Suo-Gan," the hymn "Cwm Rhondda," and of course "Ar Hyd Y Nos" (better known as "All Through the Night").

The album's real surprises, though, emerge in the bonus tracks, 1978 recordings of an adolescent Bryn Terfel performing the Welsh folk songs "Y March Glass" and "Glas Y Dorlan." It's before the voice change, before the baritone that sounded across the world, and yet it is a mesmerizing performance.

Whether you view this album as a tutorial in the career of Bryn Terfel, vocal accompaniment for your myriad moods, or a musical This Is Your Life for a singer very much in his prime, listen at your own risk. You'll find this charismatic Welshman impossible to resist.