Culture: Passion and patriotism: Valery Gergiev, the celebrated conductor, is Russian first and foremost

By Ed Vulliamy, Observer
Guardian Weekly
September 30, 2009

Valery Gergiev enters the hall at London's Barbican, leaps on to the podium, shakes the hand of the orchestra's leader and bows to the musicians, hand on heart. One would now expect the lights to dim and for Gergiev to dive into his performance. But it is 11am and this is a rehearsal of a programme that Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) have played innumerable times. He slings his jacket over the podium railings, flicks hair from his brow and rests back on a stool. "Good morning," he grins.

Gergiev is the greatest conductor of his generation. Even those who disagree concede that he is the most electrifying. His high profile internationally is based on his spellbinding effect on audiences and musicians alike - not to mention his famous performance of Shostakovich's Leningrad symphony to an audience of Russian soldiers amid the ruins of the capital of his homeland, Tskhinvali in South Ossetia, after fighting between Russian and Georgian troops. In Russia, Gergiev is an emblem of nationhood as well as cultural prowess. But Gergiev is also a jewel in Britain's crown; since the start of 2007, he has been principal conductor of the LSO.

In terms of thrilling unpredictability, a Gergiev concert is the musical equivalent of what it must be like in the seat of a racing car rounding a hairpin bend, not only for the audience - for the musicians too. "I doubt we will see another conductor like him," says Noel Bradshaw, who has played the cello with the LSO for 25 years, "during this generation, if ever."

So many batons have flown from Gergiev's hand into audiences and orchestras over the years that he now conducts with a toothpick, or with a flutter of the fingers. The way he communicates with his musicians in rehearsal is both direct and poetic, decisive and democratic. "I am a musician, as they are too. We are equals, but I am at the centre," he says.

The LSO's managing director, Kathryn McDowell, talks about planning the orchestra's seasons and concerts as a team. Gergiev is "very particular about the choice of repertoire and how a concert or season is structured", she says. "He thinks very deeply about these programmes, has these long lists and we pore over them together. We are lucky to have him as a principal conductor, which is the LSO's tradition, rather than a music director, which is what Gergiev is for the Mariinsky and which we do not have. Here, his role is entirely creative, within an orchestra that runs itself as a co-operative."

"One of the things many people assume about Gergiev is that he is interested in self-gratification and being famous," says Bradshaw, "and some great conductors I've worked with are. Yes, he wants to be influential, he wants a role in public life, so he can get things done that he is interested in, like the new concert hall in St Petersburg. But not to be famous for its own sake. Adulation does nothing for him - in fact, it's the last thing that interests him."

During the aftermath of communism in the USSR, Gergiev did two things: he and the new president, Vladimir Putin, set out to stop the haemorrhaging of Russian talent out of the country by securing funds for musicians' salaries and refurbishment. The second was to liberate a whole canon of Shostakovich's music by bringing it into the mainstream repertoire. "Dmitri Shostakovich was a man full of energy, of sharp and extremely funny words," Gergiev says. "He was known among friends as someone who comes to the party and right away from opening the door and entering the room full of some of the geniuses of the century, and even before they started to eat he would fill his glass - a big glass like we drink tea from - and fill it with vodka. Just once in the entire evening, but he would empty it in one second, like an explosion - pah! This is not a huge man, but he was able to do it. He was never totally drunk, but he was able to shock people with this ability - that was his way of living: if you do it, do it to the maximum."

Principal bassoonist Rachel Gough says: "One of the most extraordinary things about Gergiev is this ability to be the ebullient, outgoing, all things to all men, but then to focus suddenly on the musical matter in hand. He can be surrounded by cameras or hangers-on, or by friends talking about football, but in the blink of an eye, it's suddenly, and very severely, 'Right, bar 57. Allegro ma non troppo.' The only time I have ever known him distracted, with his mind clearly elsewhere, was during the fighting in his homeland."

When Gergiev played the Leningrad symphony - a sacred anthem to Russians about withstanding siege by the Nazis - in South Ossetia, opinion in the west was either confused or appalled. It was seen as a gesture of support for the Kremlin whose crushing of the South Ossetian secessionist movement the west broadly supported. Gergiev has repeatedly said he was proud of what he did as a Russian, and would do it again.

This should come as no surprise. Gergiev played a concert for peace in Omagh cathedral after the bombing and gave another similar performance in Beslan, after the killing of hundreds of schoolchildren by Chechen terrorists. "I am an Ossetian first and foremost," Gergiev once said of the forests and mountains to which he retreats when his schedule permits.

Asked how he feels being an ambassador for Russia, he explains: "You are an ambassador for your country even if you are doing very little. But I have many opportunities. If you do something wrong with all these incredible opportunities, then you will be blamed. I will not stupidly defend Russia simply because it is Russia and it is my country. But something terrible has to happen to me before I become a man who wants to be separated from his country. Look, I would finish with this: Russia is a country that can be wrong, and the leadership can be wrong, but altogether it is a peaceful country."

"In the second world war," says Gergiev, "Russia suffered more, and the Russians suffered more, than even the Jewish people. Russia lost 20 million people, plus another maybe 10m from the Stalin era - 30 million, 40 million just killed. They are not dying their own death. And no one wants another war. But as a big country, Russia has its own vision for its future and I think it would be totally, totally wrong to ignore that, also for the western countries… I am ready to be an ambassador so long as I feel that what I do is right."