When the London Symphony announced that the dynamic Russian conductor Valerie Gergiev had agreed to become its next music director, the reaction from around the music world was uniformly positive. “Snaring the world’s most charismatic conductor has made the LSO the envy of the orchestral world. But like most marriages the relationship is based on a shrewd calculation of mutual interests… What the orchestra needed was someone capable of matching and maintaining its marketprofile, not just at its Barbican base but through tours, recordings and media visibility… As for Gergiev, tying a knot with London’s best-connected orchestra represents a strategic west European foothold – a grade above his longstanding Rotterdam Philharmonic post but without making more demands on his time.”