With this release, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s joins the ranks of ensembles producing their own recordings, and while the market isn’t exactly desperate for a new Mozart 39 or 41, the results certainly play to the group’s strengths. Six of the eight movements spread among these two symphonies are as fine as we’re likely to hear. On the down-side, the finale of Symphony No. 39 flies along much too quickly. Rhythmic acuity and coloristic detail vanish in a monochrome wash of sound as everyone simply struggles to keep up. Compare this to the excellent first movement, where trumpets and drums add trenchant commentary to the fortes, and the forward balance of the wind section splashes juicy washes of color across the sonic canvas.
Similarly, Donald Runnicles makes too much of the contrast between loud and soft/fast and slow in the “question and answer” patterns that characterize so much of the Jupiter Symphony’s first movement. Whenever the dynamic level decreases, so does the tension and sense of forward movement. And yet the Andante sings gorgeously, and the finale has plenty of energy, with a particularly emphatic development section. We very easily could do without those second-half repeats in the finales, though; they always sound gratuitous and anti-climactic. Sonically, the stereo edition is preferable to the SACD multichannel production, which offers a bit less clarity and unduly diffuses instrumental textures. And for some reason there’s a concentration of performance noises in the left rear channel.
So this is a good–at times very good–release, though hopefully the group will prove a bit more adventurous in selecting repertoire for future issue. The orchestra itself plays this familiar music gorgeously for the most part, and whatever small miscalculations there are stem directly from the podium. It may be that the orchestra’s relationship with New York radio station WQXR (a very good idea) will help sell the disc, but the market remains crowded with many excellent and readily available recordings of this music.
