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.

This latest release for the award winning label is in the English repertoire at which it excels, and 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.

Stéphane Rancourt was born in Quebec in 1967. He studied in Canada with Jacques Simard at the Conservatoire de Musique de Quebec, and in Europe, with Thomas Indermuhle at the Rotterdam Konservatorium and the Staatliche Hochschule fur Musik in Karlsruhe. In Canada, he was the first oboist to win the Sylva Gelber Award and was also the prizewinner of the 1991 Prix d`Europe.

As an orchestra player and soloist, he has performed in most European countries, as well as South America, Russia, Canada, Japan and Australia. During the years 1995 to 2003 he was Principal Oboe with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra with whom he regularly performed and recorded as a soloist.

Stéphane Rancourt is a Professor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and also teaches at Chethams School of Music. He has held the position of Principal Oboe with the Hallé since 2003.

"Elder brought out exactly the right sound from the orchestra ... the passages of hobgoblin mystery that stalk through the Scherzo had a kind of Shakespearian earthiness." - Daily Telegraph on the performance of A London Symphony