Brahms: Serenade No 2, Haydn Variationen / Slatkin, St Louis Sale Low Pice Fee Shipping

“I very much enjoyed Slatkin’s performance of the Second Serenade. He approaches the work in a very relaxed, straightforward fashion, but there’s nothing dull or routine about the playing of the St Louis orchestra, which is very alert, and first class in every respect. The first movement is taken at quite an easy-going tempo, and the music is very much allowed to speak for itself, but Slatkin takes great care to state all the accents very clearly, especially in the string pizzicato accompaniments, so that the general effect is very fresh and buoyant. The somewhat complex rhythms at the beginning of the Scherzo are also very clearly articulated, and despite a fairly relaxed tempo the movement has a great deal of vitality. The Adagio is very well held together, and nowhere does it lapse into a plod, as it can so easily do, even though the tempo is quite slow…
Slatkin is again very effective in the Serenade’s last two movements, and I think his performance is marginally the best now available, if only for his slight superiority over Bertini in the Adagio. RCA’s recording is pleasantly mellow…”

— Gramophone [8/1990]