These two recordings add lustre to Andris Nelsons’ already impressive Shostakovich cycle. The Sixth, is, even by the composer’s standards, bipolar. No one does bleakness like Shostakovich and the substantial and profound First Movement Largo, (longer than the rest of the work combined) in Nelsons’ interpretation, is a grim trudge, much like the opening movements of the Eighth and the Tenth Symphonies. In the subsequent movements Shostakovich resorts to his familiar hilarity (forced or otherwise) and burlesque mode, with the occasional flash of tension to remind us just how quickly things could change in Stalin’s Russia. Nelsons and his forces are superbly alive to every nuance.