Juxtaposed here are three centuries and three faces in music: the 18th century with Mozart; the 19th with Thus Spoke Zarathustra; and the 20th with one of Dutilleux’s most inspired and poetic scores.

The exquisite grace of the melodic inspiration, the subtle dialogues between orchestra sections, the art of dramatic counterpoints: it must be said that Symphony No.29 has everything for a perfect demonstration of Mozartian style. In response to this delicate balance of proportions is Strauss’s grandiose work, excessive in every regard, composed as a loose paraphrase of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: 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.