The Alpha label has been reconfigured into part of the larger OutHere group, with a general repertory replacing the Renaissance and Baroque specialties of the sumptuously packaged former label. One thing has remained the same, however, at least in this release by conductor Paavo Järvi and the ad hoc but highly talented Estonian Festival Orchestra: packaging that delves into the context of the music involved. In this case you get pictures of Shostakovich with the Järvi family, whom he met on the Baltic coast in 1973. Whether that resulted in an especially sympathetic reading of the Shostakovich Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 54, is debatable, but the fact remains that Järvi gets ......
Continues HERE
