Could Andris Nelsons be poached from the CBSO? Christopher Morley speaks to the music director about his future plans.

It’s been quite a spring for CBSO music director Andris Nelsons, with an appendectomy in Cologne, a chance to take advantage of concert-cancellations in Japan in order to marry his long-time fiancée soprano Kristine Opolais, and the release of probably the most important CD of his career so far.

Nelsons, almost unknown on the world stage when his CBSO appointment was announced in the autumn of 2007, is now hugely sought-after.

How has this come about? I ask him as he wolfs his lunch between rehearsals at Symphony Hall.

“I don’t know. I’ve been doing what I’m doing all the time, and this is to conduct music and to love music, and to share my excitement about the pieces with the orchestras.

“That has always been my dream, and I’m really happy that I have the opportunity to conduct the best orchestras.

‘‘It’s amazing; but it gives a lot of responsibility, because, you know, when you appear with all these orchestras, as well as in Birmingham, you have to be very prepared, to be interesting, to have ideas about things you are doing and you have to give reasons to the orchestra why you are doing it...”

But does Nelsons ever conduct pieces he isn’t passionate about?

“There are sometimes pieces which I don’t 100 per cent understand, but when I start to study them I get involved with them.

‘‘Some pieces, I look at and I think ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do it’, but when I start to study, I get in love with these pieces.

“It hasn’t happened that I’ve conducted a piece that I don’t love.

‘‘There are some pieces, even if you think it’s not good music, sometimes in that moment you believe it is, that’s something you have to do.”

I wonder whether this explosion of worldwide interest in Nelsons is linked to his work with the CBSO?

“I think it’s a combination of things. My work with the CBSO is so important for me, of course. It is my musical family. Probably some people have noticed that we are working together, and become very passionate and happy about that.

“When you heard the name of Simon Rattle, 20 years ago, or even now, it’s always ‘CBSO and Simon Rattle’.

‘‘And now, of course, ‘Simon Rattle and Berlin’. But still people talk about the CBSO and Berlin, and I think, I hope, because of our work together some people will associate CBSO and me.”

I comment upon the amazing atmosphere of warmth, and indeed love, between the CBSO and Nelsons which was expressed at the end of a recent Tchaikovsky concert at Symphony Hall.

“For me I think it’s very important, like in a family, you need to have love, you need to have respect – respect for each other, and love for each other in a certain way, and respect and love for music.

“I don’t know how it would be possible to work if there is no understanding with each other,’’ says Nelsons.

‘‘My dream is that we can continue this great respect for each other and love for music, and the excitement to make music together forever.

“When it finishes and it’s time for me to leave, I really don’t want this time to come.

“Simon Rattle was here so long, and Sakari Oramo after him also a long time, and the orchestra, they love their conductors, I think this is a great tradition of theirs.

‘‘They have a great respect for conductors, and a great teamwork together. It’s not like love at first sight which continues only one year, but a continuing, developing relationship.”

Despite this love affair between Nelsons and the CBSO, there are many other orchestras sniffing around, trying to take him away, not least the Boston Symphony Orchestra, seeking to replace their ailing music director James Levine.

“I have been there once, doing Mahler Nine and it was a very nice experience, and I’m going back next season and every season as a guest conductor.

“I know they’re looking for a chief conductor, and I also know that I’m one of the candidates, but it doesn’t mean anything.

“Guest conducting is very important, because when I do I widen my fantasy, and then I can give more to the CBSO. If I were only here I would become very boring for them very soon, and I don’t want that to happen.”

Among the many illustrious orchestras Nelsons has been invited to conduct is the Staatskapelle Berlin, “loaned” to him by its chief conductor of many years Daniel Barenboim, one of the world’s greatest living musicians.

The occasion was last year’s Ruhr Piano Festival in Essen, with Barenboim playing both Chopin piano concertos, and the resultant CD recording is receiving rave reviews.

“I was very scared,” says Nelsons.

“He’s a great personality, and a great soloist, and a great man, who it seems like he has been here forever. Playing with him was a great responsibility.

“Also playing with his orchestra who know him so well, and he knows them.

‘‘Actually the collaboration was really interesting because when he communicated with the orchestra it was very quick and very specific. He knows what to ask them about technical things and they reacted very quickly.

“At the same time, I was very thankful, he was very respectful to me.

‘‘I think it was like one of these collaborations, as he told me, when he was conducting concertos with Arturo Benedetto Michelangeli, when he was young.

‘‘For me, it is the same, as a young conductor, to do this recording together with a ... star is not the right word, legend I would say ... I can learn so much from that.

“He could easily have said, ‘well, you young conductor, do like this and like this’.

‘‘But he was very respectful to my musical ideas, but of course I was also respectful to his. The musical language unites people of different ages.”