Vaughan Williams: A London Symphony & Oboe Concerto
Stéphane Rancourt (oboe)
Hallé, Sir Mark Elder
The throw themselves so fully into the texture and colour of the piece it becomes almost visual - captured are not only the hansom cabs, street-sellers' cries, Cockney mouth organs and accordions...
Vaughan Williams: A London Symphony & Oboe Concerto
Stéphane Rancourt (oboe)
Hallé, Sir Mark Elder
Purchase product
The throw themselves so fully into the texture and colour of the piece it becomes almost visual - captured are not only the hansom cabs, street-sellers' cries, Cockney mouth organs and accordions...
About
Hallé returns with a disc of Vaughan Williams in works chosen to illustrate the full range of colour and highly accomplished playing of the award winning ensemble under its Musical Director, Sir Mark Elder.
Latest release for award winning label in the English repertoire at which it excels.
Features Hallé Principal Oboist Stéphane Rancourt as soloist.
The London Symphony and Oboe Concerto were both personal favourites of the composer and contain some of his finest writing.
Vaughan Williams claimed that the Symphony should “stand or fall as ‘absolute’ music” but, as Michael Kennedy says in the authoritative note which accompanies the disc, in this work direct references to “street cries, the Abbey chimes, the Cockney’s mouth-organ and accordion, are raised to the level of great art. “
The Concerto for Oboe and Strings contains virtuosic writing for the soloist, against exquisite string writing, in a work whose early material derived from sketches the composer had prepared for the Scherzo of his 5th Symphony.
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
February 2012
The throw themselves so fully into the texture and colour of the piece it becomes almost visual - captured are not only the hansom cabs, street-sellers' cries, Cockney mouth organs and accordions explicitly dictated by the composer, but also the less tangible moods and tempos of the city...Rancourt copes excellently with the virtuoso challenges of the Oboe Concerto.
22nd October 2011
[Elder and the Hallé Orchestra ] are especially effective in the mysterious slow movement, though the Cockney high spirits of the scherzo are also vividly captured, and Stéphane Rancourt’s gentle musicianship adds an ethereal touch to the Oboe Concerto.
22nd January 2012
The orchestra’s music director stakes his claim as the country’s foremost Vaughan Williamsian...Elder’s tempos are uncannily close to those of his Hallé predecessor Barbirolli — if Elder is less expansive and indulgent in the great lento, their finales come in at exactly the same timings...Rancourt makes the strongest case I have heard for the attractively tuneful Oboe Concerto with his powerful, almost trumpet-like tone.
6th October 2011
Elder conducts the standard revision of the score, as published in the 1930s...Both the introduction to the first movement and the introspective slow movement are beautifully judged by Elder and the Hallé string, while the deftness with which he touches the detail of the rather discursive scherzo shows masterly tact.
7th January 2012
Sir Mark Elder’s live reading [of the London Symphony] is polished to perfection, affectionate but never indulgent, and with a satisfying warmth to the Hallé’s string sound...[The Oboe Concerto is] finely played by the orchestra’s principal oboe, Stéphane Rancourt, relishing the music’s gentle melancholy.
