Strauss’s grandiose work, excessive in every regard, is composed as a loose paraphrase of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, with a series of eight brilliant ‘monologues', meditations on nature and the ‘Übermensch’ (superior man), which are also powerful compositional and orchestral demonstrations. Lastly, Michaël Barenboim’s bow melds with the orchestra to deliver the exquisite sound filled with changing, dreamlike glimmers that is Dutilleux’s violin concerto, one of his finest and most poetic scores, composed for Isaac Stern.