Richard Strauss’s Burleske has been doing well on record of late. Denis Kozhukhin’s fine Pentatone recording from a couple of years ago was joined just last month by Bertrand Chamayou’s magisterial performance from Rome. And here’s another fine account from a pianist, Nelson Goerner, similarly equipped with the technique and intelligence to deal with Strauss’s virtuoso score.

Where Chamayou offers scintillating pianistic brilliance and Kozhukhin patrician control, Goerner opens with blistering energy. The opening salvos (abetted by some driving timpani interjections) are dispatched with thrilling urgency, but he also brings a lovely wistful gentleness to the more lyrical episodes and delicacy to Strauss’s more playful moments. Mikko Franck and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France offer dramatic and characterful support.

The orchestra’s wind players are given a chance to shine in an affectionate account of the early Serenade, Op 7 (composed by the 17-year-old Strauss in 1881), which offers a welcome palate-cleanser before orchestra and conductor serve up a handsome account of Tod und Verklärung. It’s a big and generous performance in the Karajan mould (and clocking in at over 26 minutes) which offers many stirring moments in sound that is pleasingly rounded and blended.

The early wind solos are beautifully turned, and the big build-ups – especially towards the final climax – are expertly controlled. Then there’s drama, too, but I miss some of that shuddering sense of dread that the 1970s Karajan creates so well even at his leisurely tempo – in the last spasms before we gradually head to the final peroration, for example (at 16'50" in this recording).

Still, much to enjoy here, as well as in Goerner’s Burleske, even if he can’t match Chamayou for sheer wizardry. With the Serenade as a welcome centrepiece, it all adds up to a satisfying, if slightly short, release.