T his is the third recording of Richard Strauss’s monumental tone poem to appear in the last year, and in some respects the most interesting. Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra adopt an expansive view, taking three minutes longer to clamber up and down the composer’s musical mountain than Edward Gardner or Nicholas Collon’s recent recordings. And yet nothing here seems to drag its feet.

Vasily Petrenko/RPO: Richard Strauss: An Alpine Symphony

The natural world through which the intrepid hikers pass may be the emphasis of the ascent, but it’s the mystic vision and elegy on the summit where the conductor’s focus lies – that and the uneasy darkness into which Strauss’s day of thrills and spills ultimately descends.

There’s a softness to the nocturnal opening that hints at mysteries to come, while a sense of awe pervades the headstrong plunge into the woods.…