This disc completes Slatkin’s survey of the “London” Symphonies and confirms his credentials as an urbane and attentive Haydn interpreter. No. 95, the least favoured of the set, and No. 97 come off particularly well. With no hint of ponderousness, Slatkin brings an imposing breadth and weight to the first movement and Minuet of No. 95, while the brilliant contrapuntal sallies in the finale (Haydn’s tribute to Mozart’s Jupiter?) gain much from the division of the violins left and right. The aggressively extrovert Vivace that opens No. 97 has a fine snap and thrust to its rhythms, the mounting tensions of the development powerfully realized; and Slatkin clearly relishes the strut and swagger of the Minuet and the comic bravado of the finale. Here and elsewhere the playing of the Philharmonia is alert and refined, with delectable work from the woodwind. In the slow movements of both these symphonies Slatkin phrases warmly and graciously, bringing out the felicities of Haydn’s part-writing – as at the opening of No. 95’s Andante, or in the chromatic coda (4'29''). Purists, though, may raise an eyebrow at the romantic liberties he takes with tempo in, say, the minore variation in No. 95 (2'31'') or at the start of No. 97’s coda (6'38'').
I also enjoyed the Clock, though, abetted by a recording that gives a more incisive edge to brass and timpani, Sir Colin Davis and the Concertgebouw (on Philips Duo) bring a shade more elan and excitement to the faster movements. The climaxes in the opening Presto and the finale blaze more exultantly under Davis, who also points the cross-rhythms and sforzando accents in the Minuet that much more sharply than Slatkin. Slatkin again scores, notably in the first and second movements (the latter taken at a crisp, high-stepping Andante), by placing the violins on opposite sides. I was, though, unconvinced by the pause before the Trio, which Haydn surely intended to emerge, with droll incongruity, directly from the resounding close of the Minuet. But if Slatkin yields to Davis in the Clock, there is little to choose between the two conductors in Nos. 95 and 97, where some may prefer Slatkin’s rather more expansive, espressivo treatment of the slow movements. Apart from the slightly too discreet brass and timpani, especially in No. 101, RCA’s recordings combine clarity with ample body and presence.'