Alan Blyth was one of the leading critics of vocal music for 50 years, contributing to newspapers, magazines and BBC reviews of all kinds. He also wrote and edited numerous books, most of them connected with opera or song.

He was born in 1929 and educated at Rugby, where he sang in the school choir and in an octet as a tenor, and at Pembroke College, Oxford. He was reading history, but spent many hours listening to the music lectures of Professor Jack Westrup. He was also on the committee of the opera club which, in 1950, staged an impressive production of Berlioz’s The Trojans, which Westrup conducted.

After doing a number of jobs in journalism and publishing, Blyth began in 1963 to write reviews, interviews and obituaries for The Times as a freelancer. In the mid1960s he was also music critic of The Listener for three years.

From 1967 to 1983 he was assistant editor to Harold Rosenthal at Opera magazine. In 1967 he also began writing for The Gramophone, reviewing opera and song discs and conducting interviews with many of the leading musical lights of the day. He wrote for both magazines for more than 40 years.

While continuing to write occasionally for The Times, he contributed reviews to The Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times, and in 1976 he was appointed a staff critic at The Daily Telegraph, where he stayed until 1991.

His first substantial publication was Opera on Record (1979), which he edited, while also writing many of the entries. A further two books, covering lesser-known operas, followed.

These were succeeded by two volumes of Song on Record and one of Choral Music on Record, which consisted of detailed and comprehensive studies by experts in the various fields. As well as editing the books Blyth wrote extensively for them himself, on Wagner, Verdi and the songs of Schubert, Duparc and Hugo Wolf.

Later he wrote paperback guides to opera on CD and on video. His other publications included Wagner’s Ring: an Introduction (1980), a plain man’s guide to the cycle, and Remembering Britten (1981), which was based on interviews with most of the composer’s collaborators.

From 1966 to 1991 Blyth was a regular contributor to the Radio 3 programme Record Review (later CD Review), and in the 1980s instigated a series called In Repertory, discussing records of works then being performed in Britain’s leading opera houses. He frequently contributed to Interpretations on Record, detailed studies of how a role had been approached over the years.

Blyth lectured on opera and was latterly vice-president of the Recorded Vocal Art Society. In 1991, when he was no longer writing overnight reviews, he moved from London to Lavenham in Suffolk. There, the following year he and his first wife, Ursula, started a music circle which ran for 13 years. Among the figures he lured to the circle were Dame Janet Baker and Sir Charles Mackerras.

For nine years Blyth was also the chairman of the management committee of the Lavenham Guildhall, a National Trust building.

One of his last projects was a critical discography of Heddle Nash, the leading lyric tenor of the 1930s and 1940s and a singer he greatly admired. It was written in conjunction with discographer Paul Campion and with help from the singer’s son.

Blyth was among the most knowledgeable specialists on the voice, and his advice was often sought on vocal matters. He always tried to convey enthusiasm in his writing but was stringent in his attempts to maintain standards. He was perhaps one of the last writers to consider that the singers should take preference over directors in writing about opera performances.

He had a vast collection of discs – 78s, LPs, CD and DVDs – which he has bequeathed to the Britten Library at the Royal College of Music.

He was married twice, first to Ursula Zumloh, who died in 2000, and then to the Buddhist scholar Sue Hamilton.

Alan Blyth, music writer, was born on July 27, 1929. He died on August 14, 2007, aged 78