I don't mind a degree of decorum in Ives's America (i.e. ''God save the Queen'') Variations: with the jokes overdone, the piece is fine for springing on an unsuspecting friend (or monarchist), but for repeated listening I'd rather have it just well played, as it is here. It's worth mentioning, though, that the New York audience only manages a few shuffles (and, who knows, maybe a grin or two)—if there was wild applause at the end, it was preceded by an abrupt fade.
Avery Fisher Hall was the location for a firm, full and well defined image. I suspect the enlivening clarity of the Reger Mozart Variations with its at times impossibly dense textures, is as much due to Masur's ear for balance as it is to the hall's dry acoustics. The balance does not always flatter the orchestra: fast, forte passages for violins reveal a certain roughness of tone and the horns often have a strangely 'cupped hands' quality. More seriously, the sound refuses to expand satisfyingly for the concluding climax of the Reger, but that may not be entirely the fault of the acoustic, of which more anon.
In the Brahms Haydn Variations not everyone relishes the flowing andante or fearsome vivace manner of a Toscanini (RCA), or more latterly of a Norrington (EMI); and the rich textures and shapely phrasing here are, for the most part, very rewarding. But for me, the stately tempo for the opening theme sets off a series of tempos fractionally too measured. And then there's the sixth variation: is this plodding crotchet=88 what Brahms really meant by Vivace? Walter (CBS) may have been as slow, but not as resolutely robust.
Conversely Masur favours relatively brisk tempos for the Reger Mozart Variations, and for all the obvious affection in both the direction and the playing, Masur can't quite match Sir Colin Davis's (Philips) humour and sleight of baton in Variation 5, and seems inhibited by Reger's gorgeous extravagances as the work draws to a close. I liked his contrasting fast Andante section at the centre of the last molto sostenuto variation, but its final two bars are a rather brief parting. Can two bars lasting 32 seconds be brief? Well, Davis respects the molto largo and rit. markings and lingers for 48 seconds. A small point, maybe, but more importantly, the same thing happens at the end of the concluding Fugue. What Reger does with Mozart's little tune here may be in shocking taste to some, but Masur's half-hearted broadening and reining in of the brass sounds, frankly, apologetic.'