HAYDN: THE COMPLETE SYMPHONIES - Ernst Marzendorfer, Vienna Chamber Orchestra

The performances, though, are often extremely fine and sometimes revelatory. There is a tautness and discipline to the string-playing and a unanimity of woodwind ensemble and intonation that often eluded Dorati’s (and even, much later, Adám Fischer’s) Austro-Hungarians. The brass display a solidity and assurance, which is all to the good when Haydn takes his horns, for example, up into the eye-watering upper extremes of their tessitura. It is difficult to imagine that Maerzendorfer’s sessions, like Dorati’s, were any more luxurious than simple rehearse-record exercises. Nevertheless, the impression in symphony after symphony is of true engagement, with a pleasing elegance to phrasing and consideration for the character of the music from moment to moment.