This is the second release in what looks likely to become a complete Vaughan Williams cycle from Mark Elder and the Hallé; the first, devoted to the London Symphony, came out 18 months ago. As before, the recordings are a mix of concert (the Fifth Symphony) and studio (the Eighth), though the differences between the recording sound of each are minimal, and the Bridgewater Hall audience is impeccably quiet. Elder's account of the Fifth has a wonderful easy breadth, a sense of inevitable unfolding that pays most dividends in the third-movement Romanza, where the symphony's thematic connections with Vaughan Williams' opera The Pilgrim's Progress are strongest, and the rapt resolution in the final passacaglia is achieved quite magically. Though it's generally regarded as the least weighty of the nine, the Eighth Symphony has its moments of profundity, too, especially in the strings-only Cavatina. But it's the shimmering tuned percussion in the outer movements that defines the work, and Elder makes the integration of those textures seem the most natural thing in the world.