It’s been a decade since Marc Albrecht last released a disc of Strauss orchestral music on Pentatone. That was an often thrilling but uneven affair recorded with his then orchestra, the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra. Now, with the Netherlands Philharmonic, and with a couple of opera recordings under his belt in the interim (including a fine Arabella – 2/16), he shows himself to have mellowed. He and his orchestra offer an instinctively effective Heldenleben and, joined by the coolly virtuoso Denis Kozhukhin, a sprightly and persuasive performance of the early Burleske.

It’s a fascinating coupling, too: the early work offering a parody of Brahmsian keyboard heroics (though not, pace Pentatone’s poor booklet, his ‘Second Piano Concerto in D minor’), the later one a wry commentary, in some ways, on Beethovenian heroism. In the wrong hands the Burleske can seem overly skittish and intractable, Heldenleben overblown and indulgent. But here Kozhukhin, making light of the awkwardness and difficulty of Strauss’s writing, proves a brilliantly fleet and mercurial soloist: there’s no shortage of heroics but his playing is meltingly seductive in the work’s many gorgeous lyrical moments. It’s a fine performance, and Albrecht and his orchestra back him up well.

Their Heldenleben is an impressive achievement too. There’s plenty of vivid characterisation, though perhaps, in Pentatone’s smooth engineering, a slight lack of bite in the overall orchestral sound. Vadim Tsibulevsky portrays a ‘Hero’s Companion’ who is perhaps gentler than many, but there’s no harm in that – although he’s can’t quite find the necessary steadiness of tone to crown his final phrase. The recording really scores points in its coherence, though, with Albrecht controlling the grand battle and triumph expertly, not scrimping on drama while keeping all its disparate elements together. There’s a real warmth to the ‘Hero’s Works of Peace’, too, and plenty to wallow in in the final section, not least some exquisite horn-playing. Recommended.