This pairing of Haydn's last, and most imposing, D major symphonies has many of the positive features of Mackerras's Mozart recordings with the Prague Chamber Orchestra. Tempos are crisp, phrasing is direct and clean-cut, with lighter, more detached articulation than in most other modern instrument performances. The string tone of the St Luke's Orchestra, a trim, efficient ensemble, is relatively sparing of vibrato, and the violins are, properly, divided left and right, to immense advantage in Haydn's many antiphonal effects. Trumpets and horns are rightly allowed their head in tuttis, and the timpani, played with what I sounds like hard wooden sticks, make an awesome impact at key moments. And, as usual, Mackerras is scrupulous in his use of the best available texts, and in his minute observance of the composer's markings.
If Mackerras's approach to phrasing and sonority reveals him as an associate member of the period-performance lobby, the drama and urgency of these readings, their powerful long-range control of tensions, betray his experience in the opera house. Both slow introductions generate an air of massive expectancy, with an acute realization of the significance and emotional force of Haydn's dissonant harmonies. And in the sonata allegros Mackerras understands exactly when to tighten the screws, whether in the crescendo of tension in the first-movement development of the London or towards the close of the recapitulation (from bar 269) in the Presto of the Clock.
In the two glorious Andantes, akin in design but so dissimilar in spirit, Mackerras adopts more spacious tempos than you might expect, though his style of phrasing is straighter, less moulded than, say, Davis (Philips) or Dorati (Decca), let alone Beecham (EMI). I would ideally like a touch more pawky humour in the Andante of the Clock, and more tenderness in that of the London, though Mackerras, with brass and timpani to the fore characteristically makes the most of their disturbing, dramatic G minor outbursts. As for the minuets, the booklet suggests that Mackerras has taken on board Czerny's suspiciously fast 1830s' metronome markings—dotted minim = 76 for No. 101 and 80 for No. 104. My fears that he might follow these literally were allayed, though his tempos are still among the snappiest on disc—dotted minim = 56 for the minuet of No. 101, 65 for that of No. 104. Both are uncommonly pungent and incisive, fierce of accent and cross-rhythm, with a thrilling timpani crescendo in No. 104 (1'05'' ff)—though other performances convey more grandeur in No. 101 and more unbuttoned earthy humour in No. 104.
In sum these are inspiriting, sharply contoured readings, keenly alive to the boldness and drama of Haydn's conceptions. In their distinctive ways Davis, Dorati and Beecham (to whom I should add Abbado on DG in No. 101) find rather more wit and geniality in this music, and greater lyrical breadth in the London. But if you fancy a direct, bracing style of performance, with more than a nod to the period movement, Mackerras and the St Luke's Orchestra make compelling listening. The recording, like the performances, is vivid and immediate, though I could have done with a little more space around the sound picture.'