The Independent Recommends: Classical

MSISLAV ROSTROPOVICH (right) and the LSO bring their magnificent Shostakovich symphony cycle to a close with the composer's 15th and last essay in the form. Shostakovich completed the work in 1971, four years before his death, and it is a valedictory affair, yet not without its share of wry humour and parodic quotation. Rostropovich prefaces it with another late work, the Suite on Verses of Michelangelo, with bass Tigran Martirossian.

Barbican Hall, London EC2 (0171-638 8891) 7.30pm

While Rostropovich airs a key 20th-century Russian song-cycle in London, the CBSO, under Sakari Oramo, tackle another in Birmingham - Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death, in which they are joined by the splendid bass- baritone, Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Bax's tone poem Tintagel and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 6, "Pathetique", complete an inviting line-up.

Symphony Hall, Birmingham B1 (0121-212 3333) 7.30pm