It’s taken nearly a decade for Pentatone to release a follow-up to its first Strauss disc with Marek Janowski, a coupling of sensible, clear-sighted performances of Macbeth and Eine Alpensinfonie with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Here Janowski brings similar virtues to the Symphonia domestica, which still lags some way behind its Alpine cousin in terms of popularity. Overblown and indiscreet are the standard charges against this musical slice of life (and have been for over a century now), the former levelled against the musical means, the latter against the programme.

Intelligent listeners now know to take Straussian programmes cum grano salis, however, seeking out the philosophical truth found beneath. A performance such as this, meanwhile, presents the piece as anything but excessive. And therein lie both its strength and its weakness. There is remarkable clarity to it, helped by Pentatone’s clean if somewhat soft-edged engineering, and Janowski paces everything expertly, never losing sight of the important milestones. The moments of hustle and bustle are wonderfully easy-going, while the Berlin RSO’s corporate virtuosity is often breathtaking – I can’t remember when I last heard the finale’s final couple of minutes, from the outrageous whooping horns to the finish line, rattled through with such apparently nonchalant ease.

The flipside, however, is that there’s occasionally something rather too efficient-sounding about it all: listen to the way the Adagio’s big theme chugs along where it should pulse urgently, for example (tr 3, 2'12"). I miss the characterisation that the RSO’s glitzier Berlin neighbour brings to its playing under Karajan and Mehta (or the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Reiner’s still unsurpassed 1950s recording). Karajan’s performance is arguably rather too boisterous and blustery, but Mehta shows that this work can be reined in without any loss of colour. He also lavishes an affection on the piece that feels lacking from Janowski, and not just in the distinctly unamorous oboe d’amore solos – the all-important espressivo markings that litter the score are too often underplayed. In sum, though packed with many fine things, Janowski’s Domestica feels a little domesticated.

Where the disc scores highly, though, is in the coupling, generous-spirited and warm recordings of the 1927 Tageszeiten for male chorus and orchestra. There’s an appealing mellowness to Janowski’s account, with fine work from the Berlin Radio Chorus, that is particularly welcome in the gorgeous second and fourth songs.