Verdi’s songs are worth searching out by those who already know the operas. Ramón Vargas, who has sung a dozen or so of the operas from the early I Lombardi to Falstaff, is well placed to embrace the outgoing emotion of the opera house and, at least occasionally, the softness of touch needed for the drawing room.

He sings the main two groups of Six Romances, dating from 1838 and 1845, complete with the help of soprano Joanna Parisi, a rather shrill and tremulous companion, who takes on Gretchen’s ‘Perduta ho la pace’ from Faust (though not her prayer, ‘Deh, pietoso, oh Addolorata’, persuasively sung by Vargas). The 1838 set offers a foretaste of Il trovatore, especially in the surging cantilena of ‘In solitaria stanza’, where Vargas is in somewhat gritty voice but smoulders with emotional heat. By and large, the 1845 set contains the better songs, especially the brooding ‘Il mistero’, nicely contrasted with lighter pieces like the ‘Brindisi’, sung here by Vargas in its second version. The recital opens with four stand-alone songs – Vargas sounds strained in the lengthy ‘L’esule’ when he adds decorations and a top C – and ends with two sacred numbers, ‘Tantum ergo’ and ‘Ave Maria’, where Charles Spencer’s always expert piano accompaniments do duty for other instruments.

Among the competition, Renata Scotto offers a more complete survey of Verdi’s song output, including some rather footling titbits and the playful ‘Il brigidino’. Margaret Price, in her DG recital, sings all the expected numbers and brings to them a radiance and aristocracy of style that are special.