Strauss ascends past waterfalls and glaciers to reach wondrous peaks of sonic rapture in An Alpine Symphony, a feat achieved by history’s greatest tone painter with the combined efforts of a colossal orchestra. Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer delight in the fresh bloom of new love, delivered with the richness and emotional intensity that Thomas Hampson has cultivated through a career-spanning Mahler obsession. In his Ballade, Coleridge-Taylor presents a stirring impression of the American folkloric landscape.