Vladimir Jurowski’s absorbing vision of Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra serves notice of nature’s ultimate power, driving the work forward with irresistible dramatic force while preserving its lyrical voice. The conductor, informed by his profound feeling for the work’s unsettling decadence as well as its portrayal of heroic human striving, shapes a compelling performance, superbly played by Berlin’s Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester and blessed with richly detailed yet warm recorded sound. While dark emotions run deep and clear throughout this interpretation, there’s no want of romantic bravado or delicious playfulness about the music-making, especially so in the bustling dialogue between solo violin and orchestra in “Das Tanzlied” (“The Dance-Song”). Jurowski and his Berlin players draw out the work’s emotional contrasts with great empathy, expressing heightened states of longing, joy, and grief with edge-of-the-seat conviction.