Conductor Valery Gergiev glad to be part of the EIF

Which is just as well, because we’re still talking just minutes before he’s due in front of the orchestra. It does nothing to belie the reputation of a jet setting workaholic that he’s gained over the last couple of decades, during which time he’s led the Rotterdam Philharmonic, injected vital new life into St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Opera, brought a welcome transparency to Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Competition, and taken the helm at the London Symphony Orchestra – among numerous other projects.

One project is his recent appointment as the Edinburgh International Festival’s honorary president – a responsibility he’s clearly taken to heart with a run of Prokofiev’s ballet Cinderella from his Mariinsky forces alongside a residency with the LSO at the festival this year.

But thankfully, when we speak, Gergiev’s mind is very much on his EIF performances, especially the eyebrow-raising juxtapositions in his ambitious four-concert survey covering the four nobly Romantic symphonies of Brahms set against the four hot-headed, exotic symphonies of Szymanowski. “It’s an interesting combination,” he admits (that’s something of an understatement). “I think I like contrasts – I don’t like to stress how much composers have in common. I’m very experienced in unusual pairings, for example Shostakovich with Haydn or Mozart. But with both Brahms and Szymanowski, there’s no pale imitation in their music. You’d never say that Szymanowski was just trying to do what Brahms had already achieved years before, and at the same time you wouldn’t say that Brahms was just trying to write Beethoven’s tenth symphony.”

That’s just the description that the conductor Hans von Bülow gave to Brahms’s first symphony way back in 1877, ten years after its first performance (he meant it as a compliment, but the composer took offence at the suggestion of plagiarism). And since then, Brahms’s quartet of seminal symphonies have seldom been absent from the great conductors’ repertoires. Gergiev has known them intimately since his student days: “Obviously all conductors grow up on Brahms, and even for me studying in St Petersburg, Brahms was my bread and butter, in the same way that Tchaikovsky and Beethoven were.”

He cites several maestros from the past – Furtwängler, Toscanini, Walter, Klemperer, Mravinsky – whose Brahms performances he particularly admires. But he also admits that there was a time when it all got a bit too much. “I felt that if there was an announcement that there would be another performance of the Brahms symphonies, I would rather not go. Maybe 25 or 30 years ago, it became rather monotonous.”

It’s a surprising admission. What was it about Brahms performances at that time that he found unappealing? Gergiev smiles knowingly. “Aren’t they sometimes too… bourgeois? You have the feeling that it’s all so well packaged – it’s like you eat a good breakfast, and then a good lunch, and then a solid dinner with good wine, and you’re basically happy with everything. I’ve heard readings like this quite a few times.” He won’t give much away about what he intends for his Edinburgh Brahms cycle, but it sounds like he thinks it’s time for a wholesale reassessment of the composer. For him, though, it won’t be one based on theories of how music would have been performed in the composer’s time. “I would never claim to take a historical approach with this kind of repertoire, with ideas like no vibrato, or  everything over-articulated. There have been many interesting attempts to do this, but for me, overcooking is not something that Brahms should be known for.”

Instead, he sees a certain freedom in performance as vital to a true understanding of the composer’s music. “Every time you approach a Brahms symphony, you can play it quite differently. Even Brahms himself was famous for doing that. He surprised one of his soloists playing his violin concerto by thinking, why not move it all on a bit faster today? I don’t think his music suffers if you use a certain degree of improvisation.”

That freedom is certainly in keeping with the vivid, volatile performances that Gergiev is so renowned for. But does he feel the weight of history looming over him as he tackles such influential works? He’s not unaware of the expectations that a Brahms cycle by someone of his international stature will raise, but modest enough to argue that he’s simply concerned with giving good performances. “This cycle should not be a statement from me – it’s just my understanding of the Brahms symphonies. They’re already in a golden place, on all the world’s musical stages – I just want to enjoy them with my fantastic instrument, the LSO.”

Gergiev accepts that the luscious music of Pole Karol Szymanowski is far less well known, even to himself. And he admits it was Edinburgh that first properly opened his eyes to it, with his 2008 performances of the composer’s sensuous opera King Roger. “It was a totally unknown opera to us,” he says. “But I think the orchestra found it amazing to play. They were really surprised by the piece, and how exciting it was.” It was a risky undertaking – bringing a virtually unknown opera in a lavish Mariinsky production – but one that paid off, and no doubt brought the composer into the consciousness of many audience members as well.

So now it’s time to delve deeper, Gergiev feels. He’s lining up the composer’s four symphonies – ranging from the exotic third with tenor soloist, named Song of the Night, to the brilliant fourth, a piano concerto in all but name – alongside those of Brahms, one of each per concert. There’s contrast from Szymanowski’s two voluptuous violin concertos, the first from Nicola Benedetti (who has made it her own since winning the BBC Young Musician title with it in 2004) and the second from hotshot Greek fiddler Leonidas Kavakos.

“I believe that for the recognition of Szymanowski’s symphonies, it’s important that we play them not just in Poland, but also in Britain, or Russia,” Gergiev says. In terms of awareness, he compares Szymanowski now to the lack of recognition that Mahler suffered 50 years ago, and says that a greater knowledge of his music will bring the same rewards. “For us to understand European musical traditions without that knowledge, it’s just not enough. And it will be interesting to see if what  we’re trying to do here will be followed.”

He clearly sees himself as something of a trailblazer. “You are talking to a conductor who is more curious than ambitious,” he explains. “But curiosity is very helpful, because it sometimes provokes interesting questions. This project has nothing to do with glorification or fame.”

And, he adds, his ever-widening exploration of lesser-known culture is central to his position as EIF honorary president. “Edinburgh is the best festival in the world,” he beams, “in terms of promoting the national cultures of so many different countries. Its focus came from after the Second World War, when the feeling shared by hundreds of millions of people was, let’s somehow find how we are united. And of course that’s through culture. That is still very resonant today, and that’s why I wanted to become part of this spirit, which is shared by so many in Edinburgh.”

Suddenly he has to make a dash for the stage. But he’s neatly brought together his questing spirit, his pragmatic ambition and, of course, his commitment to Edinburgh. All that’s left is to hear those qualities embodied in his  vibrant performances.

• Valery Gergiev conducts the London Symphony Orchestra at the Usher Hall, tonight and tomorrow, 8pm, and 18-19 August, 7:30pm. www.eif.co.uk