Now Shostakovich gets the treatment ...

The most comprehensive and intensive survey of the music of one of the greatest - and most elusive - masters of the 20th century begins in Manchester today.

Every note of the chamber music of Dmitri Shostakovich, born 100 years ago this year, will he heard at the weekend at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM).

A complete cycle of the composer's 15 symphonies, played by three orchestras under six conductors in less than six weeks, begins at the city's Bridgewater Hall with the mighty fourth on Saturday and ends next month with the 15th, with its death rattle and quotations from Wagner and William Tell.

From today's Guardian.

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