Manchester's Shostakovich retrospective has been as much about context as about completeness, with the composer's works placed throughout alongside those of friends, mentors and heroes. Mahler was the dominant influence on Shostakovich's music, Benjamin Britten the composer with whom he perhaps felt the most affinity during his lifetime. Works by both flanked Shostakovich's own in the final two concerts of the series.
On Thursday, Cristian Mandeal and the Hallé juxtaposed Shostakovich's Sixth Symphony and the Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and Strings with Britten's Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes and Mahler's Blumine. This was a great occasion. Mandeal's Shostakovich is rooted as much in romantic depth as in 20th-century asperity, and his performance of the Sixth was definitive, holding its complex mix of Mahlerian emotion and lacerating wit in perfect balance. The concerto, with Alexander Melnikov and John MacMurray as soloists, was all surface elegance and disturbing depths. Blumine was a model of sinuous grace; the Sea Interludes heaved with menace.
The closing concert, with Vassily Sinaisky conducting the BBC Philharmonic, placed Shostakovich's 15th Symphony alongside Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. The Mahler didn't quite hit home as it should. There were occasional uncertainties of mood. The tenor, Jürgen Müller, struggled at times, while the alto, Jane Irwin, was a fraction too cool.
The Fifteenth, however, was exceptionally profound. Sinaisky dwelt on its near-perfect proportions while keeping us guessing as to its allusive, enigmatic meaning. The ending, in which Shostakovich reintroduces the rattling percussion from his own Fourth Symphony, took us back to the great performance of that work with which Sinaisky kicked off the series six weeks earlier.
The whole retrospective has been among the most significant events in British music-making in recent years, matchless in its scope and concentration, and redefining, almost from scratch, our understanding of one of the 20th century's greatest, most complex composers.
