Dmitri Shostakovich. Photo: Deutsche Fotothek

WHEN tanks rolled into Ukraine, some people argued for a boycott of all Russian music here in Britain. Sense prevailed, with the acceptance that Tchaikovsky couldn’t be responsible for crimes committed long after his death; while figures like Prokofiev and Shostakovich became emblematic of the misery that ordinary Russians suffer at the hands of their political elite – which may explain the sudden avalanche of Soviet-era music happening in UK concert halls.

This weekend, Shostakovich reigns. There’s a performance of his 10th Symphony (commonly thought a cryptic depiction of Stalinist terror) at the Royal Festival Hall on Oct 28: southbankcentre.co.uk. And it’s immediately followed by a sequence of concerts on Oct 29 and 30 at Kings Place in which the Brodsky Quartet play all 15 of the composer’s string quartets: a bleak output more likely to chill your heart that cheer it, but the most impressive body of such pieces in all 20th century music – and a marathon undertaking by the Brodskys to mark 50 years since the ensemble was founded. They must have been children at the time. kingsplace.co.uk

If the bite and bitterness of so much Shostakovich is too much to cope with, there’s an alternative Soviet survey going on at Wigmore Hall over two nights, Oct 31/Nov 1, when pianist Olli Mustonen ploughs through the complete cycle of Prokofiev’s piano sonatas. A predictable tour de force. wigmore-hall.org.uk

• When a young poet called Ursula Wood sent some of her work to the venerable composer Ralph Vaughan Williams she couldn’t have guessed that it would be the prelude to a love affair, marriage, and long widowhood – all of which are the basis for a words & music concert that opens this year’s London Song Festival on Oct 28. Like everything in the festival, it happens at Hinde Street Methodist Church, Marylebone. The programmes are brilliantly put together. And it’s a good place to spot promising young singers. Runs to Dec. londonsongfestival.org

• The intimate house concerts that are the Salon Music series in Hampstead Lane, Highgate, have done well since founder Michelle Berridale Johnson launched them earlier this year. Her next venture is the JAM String Collective, a classical trio who play jazz. And how that sounds you can discover on Nov 3 when they lay claim to Michelle’s sitting room. Booking: salonmusic.co.uk

• Claire Hammond is a pianist of cool, collected intensity who hugely impressed me when I heard her a few weeks ago at the Fidelio Orchestra Café, Clerkenwell. What’s more, she thinks out of the box; and on Oct 30 she’s accompanying a seasonally scary silent movie, custom-made by those brilliant if weird animators the Brothers Quay. Be terrified to the music of Janacek, Schubert & others at Barbican’s Cinema 1. barbican.org.uk

• How brilliant English National Opera’s new stab at Yeomen of the Guard will be is anybody’s guess: it’s a stodgy piece without the madcap humour of other Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. But it can only be better than the Coliseum’s last venture into G&S, an embarrassingly limp HMS Pinafore. Let’s hope. Opens Nov 3. Runs to Dec 3. www.eno.org