Given that Thomas Hampson’s discography includes several distinguished recordings of French opera, it comes as something of a surprise to discover that this is actually his first album of French songs. It is, as one might expect, a disc of great intelligence. ‘Curated’ (to use the word on his website) by Hampson himself with the literary scholar and music critic Sylvain Fort (he was also communications advisor to Emmanuel Macron during his presidential campaign), ‘Serenade’ forges a carefully calibrated emotional narrative from mélodies written for salon performance by 19th-century composers associated primarily with opera.

The opening and closing songs – Gounod’s ‘Sérénade’ and Magnard’s ‘Les roses de l’amour’ – both depict a man gazing at his sleeping mistress: in Gounod’s case, with an air of erotic anticipation; in Magnard’s, in quiet affirmation of fulfilment. In between come songs about love, loss, youth and age, with the occasional foray into comedy (Chabrier’s villanelle about ducks) or narrative ballad (Saint-Saëns’s ‘Le pas d’armes du Roi Jean’). At the mid-point, we find the dark irony of Chausson’s ‘Chevalier Malheur’, in which the protagonist’s ‘old heart’ is given one last chance of love. Songs placed in the second half, meanwhile, reflect back on those in the first. So Bizet’s ‘La Coccinelle’, for example, surveying missed romantic opportunities with the amused detachment of hindsight, is later balanced by Massenet’s ‘Heure vécue’, in which similar experiences lead to frustrated bitterness, and so on.

The performances are comparably fastidious, though it must also be said that Hampson’s voice is no longer quite what it was. His tone now occasionally lacks lustre, and a pulse sometimes intrudes. Against that, however, must be set his ability to fuse text, lines and dynamics into highly individual expressive statements. The slow ebb and flow of tone with which he characterises the unvarying grief of Gounod’s ‘La chanson du pêcheur’ contrasts with the fluctuating light and shade he brings to Chausson’s ‘Le temps des lilas’, with its suggestion of passion eroded by time. Saint-Saëns’s ‘Le pas d’armes’ sounds gruff, but the way Hampson conveys the wily old knight’s uncomprehending wonder at Isabeau’s love for her wounded page is profoundly touching. The leisurely tempo he adopts for ‘Danse macabre’ might surprise some, though it allows him, and us, to savour the song’s satire: the pianist, Maciej Pikulski, also comes into his own here, with some appropriately brittle if dexterous playing. He’s an excellent accompanist, subtle in his phrasing, keenly alert to shifts in mood and colour throughout.