It's safe to say that the personnel of the Hallé, celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, bears little or no resemblance to that of the orchestra in its last golden era, that of Barbirolli half a century ago.

Yet under Mark Elder the orchestra is once again playing with a radiance of tone reminiscent of that period, and even greater security of technique. There is also an exemplary homogeneity of timbre right through the sections: a seamless blend evident from start to finish of this outstanding concert.

It began with Butterworth's A Shropshire Lad, the orchestral rhapsody recently championed by Elder and interpreted with that lingering, wistful quality he does so well. The rhapsody was preceded and followed without a break by three poems from the A.E. Housman cycle that inspired and gave its name to Butterworth's piece.

It was an inspired idea, compromised only by the choice of a pair of television actors, Rupert Evans and Tom McKay, got up to resemble a couple of Housman's "chaps from the field". No problem with the stage show but the casual, demotic delivery robbed the verse of much of its resonance.

Vaughan Williams' Symphony No 8 in D minor was premiered by the HallÈ in 1956 but is not often heard in performance. Elder caught the first movement's sublimity to perfection, while the Shostakovich-like irony of the Scherzo alla Marcia brought superb playing by brass and wind. It was the turn of the strings in the third-movement Cavatina, a wonderfully ruminative piece of music that holds more than one surprise.

At the opposite end of the popularity spectrum, Bruch's Violin Concerto No 1 in G minor seemed in Elder's hands as freshly conceived as any piece new to the repertoire. With Janine Jansen an equally inventive soloist, this reading of the work gave full weight to the spirit of drama while elsewhere reducing the dynamics to a rapt whisper that held the packed audience spellbound.

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