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. In his otherwise very good performance on Orfeo/Harmonia Mundi, it is noticeable that Gary Bertini doesn't entirely avoid rhythmic stodginess in this movement, even though he adopts a faster basic tempo.
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, whereas the Orfeo sound is more forward and analytical. In general Bertini conducts an appealingly fresh, yet affectionate account of the work, with sometimes slightly quicker tempos than Slatkin.
After his account of the Serenade I found Slatkin's performance of the Haydn Variations disappointingly dull. The playing is very good, and the reading is sound and unidiosyncratic, but it's also rather plain and routine. The overture also starts in unpromisingly lacklustre fashion, but tension picks up and the ending is splendidly vital.
It seems logical to couple the two serenades, as do Bertini and Kertesz, whose conducting is lively but unimaginative on a bargain-price Decca Weekend Classics reissue. I would recommend Slatkin's disc more highly if his accounts of the two shorter works were more impressive, but since there's so little between his performance of the Second Serenade and that of Bertini I continue to recommend the Orfeo disc.'