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When the 14-year-old Richard Strauss got caught in a storm, lost in the mist, soaked by the rain or blistered by the sun while out mountaineering, his response was to sit at the piano and improvise a musical description of the experience. That sowed the seeds for a work born 35 years later: An Alpine Symphony. This spectacular symphony, which calls for an orchestra of 130 musicians – including wind machine, thunder machine, cowbells, organ and offstage brass – will surely raise the roof of the Royal Albert Hall. But only after Mozart – at his most charming in the Piano Concerto No. 9 – and the late Kaija Saariaho’s Mirage, a hypnotic snapshot of womanhood for soprano, cello and orchestra.

Broadcast live on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 3

Seong-Jin Cho © Christoph Koestlin