Very few 'chanteuses' come close to rivalling Nana Mouskouri's presence on the European music scene. In France, fans consider Nana to be a French artist, in Germany she's hailed as German and audiences in the UK respect the singer as a pure Anglophone. And, yet, everybody everywhere knows Nana has Greek blood coursing through her veins! Perhaps Nana's secret lies in the fact that, over the four decades of her hit-making career, she has become one of the official voices of Europe – a status confirmed when she was invited to record the anthem of the European Union!

The Nana Mouskouri Collection, released on Mercury-Universal, celebrates forty years of the Greek singer's impressively polyglot career. The collection is made up of a staggering 34 CDs, 30 of which are Nana Mouskouri albums which have been released in France since the 60s. However, the real interest in this mega-collection lies in the 230 'bonus' tracks (songs Nana has recorded live in concert or in half-a-dozen different languages over the years). But, make no mistake about it, the track list is not exhaustive. The 673 songs in this weighty boxed set represent only half of Nana's output to date!

Committed Mouskouri fans may already own a fair number of Nana's albums, but the special bonus that will whet collectors' appetites for this new release is undoubtedly the accompanying book (booklet seems too small a word!) penned by Nana herself. The 132-page work, published in the shape of an LP, looks back on Nana's life and career to date, tracing her history from her very first steps taken as Joanna Mouskouri. The singer was actually born in Crete, but her parents moved to Athens just before the war, her father finding work as a projectionist at a local cinema. As a young girl growing up in pre-war Athens, Nana spent most of her time listening to the radio when she wasn't nipping in to her father's cinema to watch movies. Nana soon proved to have a natural vocal talent and from the moment she launched her career she displayed a natural aptitude for singing in different languages. (In this Nana was very much a product of her country at the time; the films shown in Greek cinemas were never dubbed and many teenagers tuned in to radio stations broadcast to American military bases).

From Nana's autobiography we learn the budding pupil at the local Conservatoire was expelled when it was discovered she had sung jazz in public. Another defining moment of Nana's early career was when she helped Manos Hadjidakis "give birth" to Les Enfants du Pirée (the legendary song performed by Melina Mercouri in the film Jamais le dimanche). Nana also recounts the "shock" she received, shortly after launching her career on the French music scene, the first time she saw Edith Piaf live on stage. "I really don't have the right to call myself a singer any more!" she confided to Louis Hazan, director of the Philips and Fontana record label, after the show. Interestingly enough, Nana appears to view most of her career as self-evident. In her version of her life, it appears only natural that she should have simultaneously conquered the hearts of fans in different countries, that she should have assured such a hectic performing and recording schedule over several decades - and that a whole string of gold discs and prestigious awards should have come her way!

Listening to this mega-collection, it is certainly easier to pinpoint the reasons behind Nana's international conquests and her enduring success. Throughout her career, the Crete-born star was almost obsessive in her desire to stick to the middle ground. This means Nana steered well clear of the worst excesses of 'variété' (and her arrangements thus sound far less dated than those of her peers such as Mireille Matthieu). Nana also avoided the part-folk, part-Jansenist ethic that dominated the French music scene for a while, which insisted on a certain sparseness and musical purity. Nana ignored passing trends and music fads, insisting on steering her own course. And, if there is purity to be found in her work, it lies not so much in the instrumentation nor the placing of emotion, but in the limpidity of her vocals and the recording itself.

When the Greek 'chanteuse' recorded her own version of Francis Cabrel's Répondez-moi, in 1985, for instance, her interpretation was decidedly less earth-bound than the original, seeming as it did to float several feet above the ground. On the contrary, Nana's 1967 version of Simon & Garfunkel's 59^th Street Bridge Song-Feeling Groovy – entitled C'est bon la vie – comes across as a lot less emotional and euphoric than the original. It is as if Nana invented her own perfect niche on the music scene, specialising in serene enjoyment and controlled emotion. This style contrasted with the flashy over-the-top style of many of her peers and doubtless did much to aid the conquest of audiences all the way from Palermo to Berlin.

Given the sheer size of this Nana Mouskouri Collection, fans are guaranteed to find all their old favourites, ranging from Le Temps des cerises (with its haunting bouzouki echoes) to Les Feuilles mortes, sung in English, pure Hollywood-style. Dans les prisons de Nantes is also included with its jaunty folk-style violins, as is Nana's version of the Neil Young classic After The Gold Rush (recorded in English, of course!) together with a stack of adaptations of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan songs. Aranjuez is featured in its German version, La Paloma comes in Portuguese and, strangely enough, there are countless songs with the word "sun" in the title!

Given Nana's love of rich, full melodies and her penchant for romanticism sans exaltation, it is hardly surprising that Greek's number 1 musical export eventually turned to the classical repertoire. In 1974 she adapted an air from Bellini's Norma, transforming it into the 'variété' chart hit, Toi qui t'en vas. Nana also recorded La Habanera from Bizet's Carmen as a duet with French star Serge Lama in 1977 and made a French adaptation (Je chante avec toi liberté) of the slave chorus from Verdi's Nabucco in 1981. Both became radio hits, paving the way for Nana's albums Classic (1988) and Classique (1999). The Nana Mouskouri Collection confirms that the Greek icon has led a rich and varied life indeed!

Nana Mouskouri Collection, boxed set of 34 CDs (Mercury-Universal)