The great Basilica of the Escorial wears an unusually bright expression for this concert. ‘The heart of Spanish civilization is here,’ the guide told us with unsmiling pride on the occasion of a visit years ago. A place of austere self-denial, as I remember it; massively impressive but chilly, and even in its splendour just a little forbidding.

In this filmed May Day birthday celebration of the Berlin Philharmonic, light floods the place and everything looks as though seven maids with seven mops have swept it for half a year. The camera lingers over the shining reredos and looks up into the airy dome. Fiat lux is the primal law of the television, and the mysteries of religious gloom are banished. Philip II would hardly know the place.

But if the shadows have departed, the echo lingers on. The thrice-reiterated unison opening the Forza del destino overture resounds with the awesome insistence of fate itself. In the pause after a swirling fortissimo climax a terrifying rumble as from the underworld mimics the voices of timpani and double-bass. I don’t think Toscanini would have liked it, but it seems not displeasing to Barenboim. He settles for slow speeds and a clear beat. When the time comes to quicken the pace he does so excitingly, and at all times the players are ready with shapely phrases, unfailing precision and beautiful tone. Has this place ever heard Wagner before? If so (and it seems unlikely), then surely not so magnificently played.

Domingo is in fine, incisive voice, though not providing any imaginative touch or specially memorable moment. The aria from Don Carlos is well-chosen for the location, though neither it nor the invocation from La Damnation de Faust can be said to work very effectively as concert pieces. The leaflet-notes give only minimal help to a listener looking to learn about meaning and context. It also seems a pity, considering the particular occasion of the concert, that while biographical notes on conductor and soloist are supplied, little is said about the orchestra itself.