The only work most British concert-goers ever hear by Liadov is his short tone-poem The Enchanted Lake. This softly iridescent, if rather meandering, piece strongly suggests that his other works might be worth pursuing, so the chance to hear two other miniatures was very welcome. Baba Yaga was obligingly menacing and spiky, while Kikimora - a portrayal of the Russian house-spirit - was more impishly spooky. All they need is the gentlest of touches, and the Russian conductor Alexander Polianichko handled them gracefully. Borodin's Polovtsian Dances fared less well. Singing in Russian, the Hallé chorus sounded lacklustre, and Polianichko and the Hallé came inexcuseably close to disaster near the end of the second Dance.

After a soggy start, the chorus underwent a miraculous transformation for the four scenes from Boris Godunov. With all Russian vowels absolutely clear and precise, their delivery of Musorgsky's beautiful Coronation hymn was spine-tingling. John Tomlinson, as Boris, was compelling. Formal dinner jacket and tie were no obstacle to his delving deeply inside Boris's flawed but tragic character, giving him dignity even as he cowers before Dmitri's ghost and cravenly begs Russia's forgiveness. Tomlinson dominates the stage even in concert performances, and his spare gestures conveyed such intensity of expression that at the end of his death scene it seemed as if he would silently keel over at the front of the Bridgewater Hall stage.

Skryabin's Poem of Ecstacy probably divides listeners as starkly now as it did in his lifetime. The young Pasternak adored it, while Rimsky-Korsakov thought the composer had gone mad. It is a difficult work to pace, and in its eagerness to overwhelm can have exactly the opposite effect. It was all the more impressive, then, that Polianichko managed to pull off such a spectacular performance, marred only by its careless ending.