He was born Gérard Tisserand into a musical family in Angers: his father was a cellist, while his mother, his sister (later appearing professionally as Geneviève Turaine) and two brothers were all singers. He himself was, as a boy, a pianist. However, while he was studying philosophy in Paris he met Bernac who, on hearing the young man sing, urged him to develop his vocal potential.

He took up that advice, and in 1940 entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he won various prizes before graduating. He also studied privately with Bernac and Claire Croiza. In 1945, he made his first public appearance and immediately won plaudits for his artistry.

Souzay - then 27 - began to build his international career: as I recall, his early appearances in Britain were revelatory. The basis of his popularity in recital lay in his easily produced, vibrant, warm baritone. It was used by its owner with an innate sensibility and an unfaltering sense of style. His attractive art was founded, above all, on a very French approach, at once balanced and urbane, yet inwardly poetic.

His eager response to the text in hand was married to a sensitivity to the minutiae of interpretation that never stepped over into exaggeration. Shapely and secure as were his singing and phrasing, he evinced a sense of emotional empathy with each composer whose songs he tackled.

Following an appearance as the male lead in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, he was invited by Leopold Stokowski to take the title role in Monteverdi's Orfeo at the New York City Opera in 1960. He first sang Golaud in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, his most notable assumption (which he also recorded), at Rome in 1962, followed by Don Giovanni at Paris in 1965, Count Almaviva at the Metropolitan, New York, and Glyndebourne the same year.

He was also notable as the Father in Berlioz's oratorio L'enfance du Christ, and he had a long and fruitful career in the recording studio, beginning with the small Boite à Musique company in Paris in the late 1940s, including duets with his sister.

Soon he was signed up by Decca for whom, many would agree, he made his most attractive discs - though not the singer himself, who at one time banned them from being broadcast by the BBC. These include some particularly beautiful and discerning interpretations of Duparc, Fauré, Ravel, Debussy and Poulenc. By the time he moved to Philips and then to EMI, the voice had lost some of its bloom.

In addition to French song, he was a notable interpreter of Schubert and Schumann; his recordings of the former's Die Schöne Müllerin and the latter's Dichterliebe are among the most persuasive of versions sung by baritones. Jacqueline Bonneau was his pianist on most of his early records. Then he formed a long and close musical partnership with Dalton Baldwin.

Souzay was a scrupulous artist almost to a fault, never wholly satisfied with his achievements and apt to be tetchy when discussing them. Many times I wanted to use records of his in the BBC Record Library for illustrating a point in a broadcast, but was nearly prevented from doing so by his ban on their use. It was represented by a note inserted in the catalogue, "Not to be broadcast at the singer's request", fortunately ignored by most producers. He imposed it because he virtually disowned his early efforts for Decca, as he imagined he had improved on them in one or other of his later versions.

It was an opinion he maintained right up into the 1980s, when he persuaded Testament Records to issue his drab, dry-voiced interpretations of Schubert from the 1970s. Happily the same company then reissued all his Decca song recordings without consulting the artist, and one of them has been nominated for this year's Gramophone awards in the historic category.

In his later years, he was a rather sad figure, living alone in the South of France, feeling forgotten and neglected, the fate of many singers, since - by the nature of their voices - their careers seldom extend into old age. Yet he left such an extensive and worthwhile heritage of his art that he is sure to be remembered while intelligent and beautiful singing is recognised as such.

His mellifluous and supple voice was allied to a bright intelligence in the treatment of texts that manifested itself in everything he tackled. He also had a successful career on the concert platform as a soloist in choral works, but his operatic appearances were restricted to three or four significant roles: he was no great actor.

Les vagues du silence de Gérard Souzay, Bibliothèque des arts, Maîtres d'hier et d'aujourd'hui, Beaux Arts

Gérard Souzay de Gérard Souzay, Bibliothèque des arts, Maîtres d'hier et d'aujourd'hui, Beaux Arts

Sur Mon Chemin de Gérard Souzay, Bibliothèque des arts, Maîtres d'hier et d'aujourd'hui, Beaux Arts

Gérard Souzay raconte fables, dessins, dialogues et rencontres de Gérard Souzay, Éditions Somogy

Chausson: Poème De L'amour Et De La Mer; Duparc / Souzay
Debussy: Mélodies / Gérard Souzay, Dalton Baldwin
Debussy: Pelléas Et Mélisande / Cluytens, Souzay
Falla, Ravel, Fauré / Gérard Souzay
Fauré: Complete Songs / Elly Ameling, Gerard Souzay
Gérard Souzay Vol 1 - Recordings 1944-1950
Gérard Souzay Vol 2 - Recordings 1948-1955
Massenet: Manon / Rudel, Sills, Gedda, New Philharmonia
Mélodies Françaises Pour Bariton - Fauré, Etc / Souzay
Monteverdi: L'orfeo; / Stokowski, Souzay
Poulenc: Mélodies / Ameling, Gedda, Parker, Sénéchal, Souzay
Schubert: Die Schöne Müllerin/ Gérard Souzay, Dalton Baldwin
Schubert: Die Winterreise, Schwanengesang / Gérard Souzay
Schumann: Dichterliebe, Etc; Wolf / Gérard Souzay