Donald Runnicles and the Atlanta Symphony serve up a spiffy yet sober account of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony. Repeats in the Scherzo are observed; otherwise, the interpretation eschews most modern notions of early 19th-century performance practice in favour of an older sort of classicism – the kind of lean, metronomically disciplined approach taken by George Szell and Charles Munch, among others. The ASO plays very well for Runnicles, if at significantly lower intensity than those memorable accounts from Cleveland and Boston. Where the Clevelanders set off jolts of electricity in the sharply-dotted rhythms of the symphony’s opening, for example, the Atlantans offer genteel exactitude. In the Scherzo, the snarling woodwind passage at 0'46" is polite to the point of timidity and is thus buried beneath the strings’ insistent stomping.

Given Runnicles’ experience as an opera conductor, one might expect the finale to be the performance’s high point. But though Runnicles’ tempi are well-chosen and there are some lovely orchestral details to savour – the delicate colouration of the ‘Turkish March’, for instance – there is precious little drama. Soprano Mary Dunleavy tends to drown out the other vocal soloists, and the choral singing is strangely subdued, though in the latter case, the recording balance seems to be at fault. The Adagio stands out; Runnicles immediately establishes an atmosphere of enveloping warmth and real innigkeit, aided by warm, cultured playing from the ASO strings. If only the remainder of the interpretation were so uplifting.

‘Symphony at the Opera’ is an odd programme yet it provides a considerably more impressive demonstration of Runnicles’ musicianship. One is swept up into the grim world of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by the manic intensity of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra’s playing. Slightly slower tempi might have yielded greater bite in the last three entr’actes, but the frenzied pace certainly sets one’s pulse racing. And Runnicles establishes a striking affinity between Shostakovich’s score and Britten’s Peter Grimes with a similarly uncompromising performance of the Passacaglia and Four Sea Interludes. ‘Dawn’ is painted in myriad shades of metallic grey, for example, and the nocturnal seascape of ‘Moonlight’ appears as a frozen image – the waves sharp-edged instead of undulating. Some details are lost in the fast-moving ‘Storm’, resulting in something of an Impressionist haze. Still, this is an individual interpretation well worth hearing.

I’ve never been a big fan of the suite from Bernstein’s West Side Story, and at first I was dubious about its appropriateness here. But Runnicles wisely wrenches the music free from its Broadway roots, playing down the jazziness of the music in the Prologue, for instance. With such chiselled, rhythmically taut playing, there’s precious little swagger and absolutely no swing. For once, the title Symphonic Dances seems apt. The ‘Cha-Cha’ and ‘Fugue’ also have a refreshing, Stravinskian angularity, and I’ve never heard the finale played with so little sentimentality. It works. It must be noted, too, that Arabesque’s recording is just as vivid as Telarc’s and more naturally balanced.