The present volume is the first in a series devoted to Beniamino Gigli’s “singles” – his song and aria recordings not issued as part of complete opera sets. The aim of the series is to include every Gigli recording released at the time, as well as every published alternate take and, wherever available, unpublished takes. For the golden-voiced Beniamino Gigli, 1918 was a golden year. Just 28, he was engaged by Toscanini to join La Scala and he was discovered by Fred Gaisberg, head of HMV in London, who contracted him to make his first recordings. Gaisberg described Gigli as the second Caruso except that he had greater flexibility. On the 1918-19 discs we hear the Gigli voice in its absolute prime, firm, sweet, flexible, clean in line with few of the maddening if endearing traits that affected him in later years. Arguably, Gigli’s is the most sheerly beautiful and probably the most natural tenor in the history of the gramophone.