Domingo remains a phenomenal singer, with an extraordinary range of expression. In this selection of coplas and pasodobles, the majority composed in the 1930s and ’40s, he uses his voice in a mostly baritonal range. These are the songs, as he writes in the notes, that he heard as a child in Spain, even before his family moved to Mexico: “Since then I have had them in my mind’s ear.”

The mood is for the most part highly emotional, the words by celebrated lyricists such as Ramón Perelló and Rafael de León, drawing on a sort of fatalistic romanticism. Two of the most famous songs, composed by Juan Mostazo Morales to words by Perelló, “Falsa moneda” and “La bien pagá”, were associated with Conchita Piquer, Imperio Argentina and Juan Valderrama, popular idols of the era, performing both before and after the Spanish Civil War. In these, and in more upbeat songs such as “¡Ay, Maricruz!” by Manuel López-Quiroga y Miquel, Domingo brings a fervent commitment to the story-telling. Each song is what he calls a “mini-opera”.

Although originally they would have been accompanied by solo piano or guitar duettists, once the coplas transferred to the big screen – the huge repertory of popular Spanish musical films remains completely unknown in other centres – the sort of large-scale orchestration heard here became the norm. The Madrid Community Orchestra under Miguel Roa provide elegant and idiomatic accompaniment.

Clearly a labour of love, this disc will surely serve as an introduction to this neglected corner of 20th-century popular, folk-inspired repertory. Just the titles will be enough to “explain” the genre: “Don’t love me so much”, “You bewitched me” and the earliest, by Antonio Álvarez Alonso, “Suspiros de España” – “Longing for Spain”.