‘It is not necessary to add sugar to honey.’ Manfred Honeck quotes his predecessor as music director at the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Mariss Jansons, in his lengthy booklet-notes to his recording of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony. Honeck’s account is far from syrupy but, compared with Jansons’s own Oslo Philharmonic recording, it is expansive and just a little disengaged.

Woodwinds blend well and Honeck draws an energetic burst in the first-movement Allegro vivo, but there is a plodding, matter-of-fact feel to the pizzicatos in the closing bars. The 5/4 waltz charms, with gently slurred string articulation. The March progresses in businesslike fashion, with a triumphant swagger to the Pittsburgh brass, but both Jansons in Oslo and Evgeny Mravinsky, in his classic stereo Leningrad Phil recording, inject a greater sense of unrest. The strings reserve their passion for the finale, a slower burn than Jansons and Mravinsky and less moving. Jansons demonstrates that the Pathétique can really move without reaching Mravinsky’s near-hysteria (which I confess to adoring).

The silence at the end of the Pathétique is rudely interrupted by the crashing, triangle-led pomp of the Polonaise from Act 2 of Rusalka, the opening strains of Honeck’s artfully stitched together fantasy from Dvořák’s opera. It’s an entertaining collage featuring many of the familiar characters, from the splashing water nymphs to Ježibaba’s cackles. Rusalka’s Song to the Moon is taken by solo violin, but can’t quite tug the heartstrings as easily as a soprano.

I usually associate Reference Recordings with the splendid engineering of ‘Prof’ Johnson (Keith de Osma Johnson). I’m not surprised his name is absent here, as the sound is disappointing, possibly due to the recording being made in concert. The Heinz Hall acoustic is cloudy and bass-light, with strings lacking richness or depth, a particular problem for the double basses in their mourning sighs in the final movement.

Honeck praises the ‘utmost technical perfection’ of his Pittsburgh players and this description best characterises their playing – proficient but lacking in emotion.