‘Italia, ti amo’. But, as Domingo explains in interview, his native Spain comes first. All the same, he has apparently been waiting 40 years to make a recording such as this, and there aren’t many tenors who could afford to do that. These after all, are songs for the refulgent voice and that usually means the young voice; yet Domingo, phenomenal in this as in so much else, in his sixties still has the voice, if not of youth, then of a man in his prime. There’s a kind of carapace, a metallic shield over the velvet, but that still shows through, and the vibrations are all healthily even.

He sings with uninhibited emotion but knows when the limits of good taste are reached. The songs themselves are of course those of another age. The orchestral arrangers introduce little syncopation (and at least one of them is far too fond of the cymbals), but this is really popular music of the early 20th century. In one of them, Al di là del cielo, the composer (b1970) offers an invitation to croon, which, if Domingo recognised it as such, he firmly rejects. There’s a formula – minor key for verse, major for refrain – but it’s one we’re all fond of. Rather marvellously, they survive, these songs of old-world passion, and some (Tosti’s Non t’amo più!, for instance) haunt the memory long after ‘better’ music has faded. The disc is issued as part of a tribute to the tenor by DG to celebrate their 30-year association. The programme includes another tribute: Plácido Jr’s Quarant’ anni, a song written for his parents’ 40th wedding anniversary, an endearing gift and perfectly suiting his father’s voice, whether of today or of 40 years ago.