Valery Gergiev is one of the busiest conductors in the world (and surely one of the busiest people). If it’s Tuesday, it must be the Botswana Opera, or something. He has been a workhorse in New York lately, conducting Tchaikovsky’s “Mazeppa” at the Met, leading Shostakovich symphonies in Avery Fisher Hall. On Sunday afternoon, Mr. Gergiev embarked on a seven-concert series in which he will conduct all 15 Shostakovich symphonies. He will do so with two orchestras: the Kirov, of which he is artistic director, and the Rotterdam Philharmonic, of which he is principal conductor.

He is also doing this cycle in London, incidentally – with still more orchestras.

And why all this Shostakovich? Music has anniversaryitis, as you know, and Shostakovich was born in 1906.If you’re interested in all 15 Shostakovich string quartets, you may show up at Alice Tully Hall, starting on April 27, to hear the Emerson String Quartet play them.

I do not contend that programming all 15 symphonies – or all 15 string quartets, for that matter – is a bad idea. The claim is made that such a survey gives you the scope of Shostakovich’s life, and, in a way, the scope of the Soviet Union. This is not an outlandish claim.

Mr. Gergiev’s orchestra on Sunday afternoon was the Kirov, and they played the First and the Second Symphonies, plus the Tenth. Obviously, they’re not going in order, these orchestras – but it was nice and reasonable that the series started with the First and the Second.

Shostakovich wrote the First when he was but 18, fulfilling an assignment at the Leningrad Conservatory. Smart, talented boy. That maiden effort sounds exactly like him, full of chromaticism, impertinence, and ingenuities. The symphony had its premiere performance at the hands of Nicolai Malko, conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic. Two years later, Malko fled the Soviet Union, in a typically tense escape.

You may be interested to know that the conductor’s son, George, lives here in New York, and a few years ago wrote a play about his gifted and fascinating family.

Mr. Gergiev conducted the Symphony No. 1 with his usual engagement and adrenalin. He can get excited about anything, Mr. Gergiev – and that is a very useful trait in a conductor. He was more effective in the faster movements than in the slow, but you can seldom have everything.

The Kirov Orchestra was at the top of its game, and there was much slick solo playing: from the trumpet, the clarinet, the concertmaster. Also the timpanist, rightly wild.

The Second Symphony is in one movement, and has a Largo opening and a choral finale: “To October,” whose last words are spoken by the chorus: “October, the Commune, Lenin!” This piece was written on the 10th anniversary of the Revolution.

From Mr. Gergiev, the Largo was appropriately spooky, a bit tingling. And the Riverside Choral Society, in combination with the Rutgers University Kirkpatrick Choir, sang the finale solidly and robustly.

I was reminded of a concert that Vladimir Ashkenazy conducted in Carnegie Hall three years ago. The orchestra was the Czech Philharmonic. He programmed propaganda pieces composed by Shostakovich and Prokofiev, usually under duress. After one piece, Mr.Ashkenazy made the universal “crazy” symbol – circles to the side of the head.This was an immensely gratifying gesture, in the context.

I wish such a gesture had been made on Sunday afternoon.

And I have a question: Would an audience sit still for a paean to Nazism, no matter what the historical curiosity, and regardless of the need for completeness? Some chorus by Carl Orff, let’s say (theoretically)?

But these are apples and oranges, or so suppose many, fuzzy people.

After intermission, Mr. Gergiev and the Kirov jumped forward to the Symphony No. 10, written right after the death of Stalin, in 1953. The first movement is filled with sinuous, sometimes growling lines,and the orchestra played them wisely and beautifully. We heard that special combination of sadness and anxiety, so common in Shostakovich. And Mr. Gergiev built this movement cannily: It was not all climax.

Furthermore, I don’t think of Mr. Gergiev as much of a rehearser, but the playing here was amazingly precise and assured.

The second movement brings that rattling, martial Shostakovich, and this was conveyed expertly. The third had its screwball, off-kilter quality. And as far as the last movement is concerned, I will repeat my point: These St. Petersburgers played with the superior technical precision we normally associate with American orchestras and find missing in bands from elsewhere.

As always, Mr. Gergiev threw himself entirely into his work. You know that hippy-dippy expression, “[So-and-so] gives so much”? I’ve never liked it, but I did think of it, as Mr. Gergiev conducted: He gives so much.

So there you have it.

Mr. Gergiev will conduct performances of Shostakovich symphonies with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra on April 9 & 10, and with the Kirov Orchestra on October 24 & 29 at Avery Fisher Hall (Lincoln Center, 212-875-5656).