An excellent Planets (Hyperion, 8/01) is all we’ve heard of the burgeoning Hallé/Elder partnership on disc. These first two releases on the orchestra’s new eponymous mid-price label not only show the Manchester band to be in particularly healthy fettle at the moment but also reveal Mark Elder as an invigorating Elgarian in his own right.

No doubt about the highlight here: In the South receives a performance of exhilarating swagger and sighing poignancy, as generously sung as any to have come my way since this same group’s Royal Festival Hall broadcast from May 1970 under Barbirolli (spookily enough, both interpretations clock in within a few seconds of each other). Mezzo Christine Rice then teams up with Elder at the piano for a lovely rendering of In moonlight, a setting from 1904 of the solo viola’s ‘Canto popolare’ from the heart of In the South.

Of the Hallé’s three previous commercial recordings of the First Symphony, I retain a huge fondness for Barbirolli’s uniquely affecting 1956 version. If Elder’s new account fails to match that highest of benchmarks, it has many virtues of its own. Right from the outset, one can hardly fail to be struck by the judicious blend and eagerness of the Hallé’s response; Elder steers a scrupulously observant, clear-sighted course through the first two movements, sifting luminous textures with mastery (his antiphonally divided first and second violins are a boon throughout). Come the Adagio, however, and I register a degree of reserve: for all the bewitching surface beauty, that last ounce of tugging emotion remains elusive. The finale, too, is a case of ‘so very nearly’, the main Allegro bringing a hint of foursquare impatience that tends to undermine the grit of Elgar’s counterpoint in the development (try from fig 126 or 4'51"). Nor do the closing pages possess Barbirolli’s awesome strength. A stimulating Elgar 1 nonetheless, if perhaps too pristine and ‘squeaky-clean’ for all tastes; Sir Colin Davis’s grander LSO Live rival makes for a more consistently involving experience.

The companion release launches with a live Enigma captured over three concerts from October of last year. In its painstaking preparation and agreeable poise, Elder’s Enigma has much in common with Rattle’s, though the Hallé strings generate a greater body of tone than do their Birmingham counterparts. It’s a thoughtful reading that takes a little while to get into its stride, hitting perceptive heights from the ‘G.R.S.’ variation onwards. ‘Nimrod’ builds imposingly, but rather lacks nobility. Truth to tell, the performance as a whole has not quite the humanity and freshness of, say, the 1956 Barbirolli or Monteux. By way of a fascinating bonus, Elder also gives us Elgar’s original finale: sensibly allotted a separate track at the end of the disc, its truncated final flourish comes as something of a jolt.

Elsewhere, there’s a sophisticated Chanson de matin and terrific Cockaigne (full of teasing wit and beaming affection), but the Serenade is blighted by some uncomfortably ‘knowing’, awkwardly deployed portamento, its central Larghetto merely aping the spiritual dimension one encounters under Barbirolli, Boult or Del Mar (the last formerly on EMI British Composers – sadly nla).

Recording venues (Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall and BBC Studio 7) are well-matched, production and engineering (Andrew Keener and Simon Eadon) uniformly top-notch – and all at mid-price, too.