Zubin Mehta reflects on a lifetime of music and his deep connection to Mumbai
Seated by a window at a Mumbai five star hotel overlooking an early evening panorama of a tranquil harbor, he was in symphonic spirits. Though frail at 88, his indomitable passion for music and childlike zest for life, astonish his audiences and admirers.
Zubin Mehta, ideally Western Classical Music’s greatest living legend and globally celebrated conductor, who has mesmerised the world for over six glorious decades, had been in Mumbai to conduct the National Center for the Performing Art’s Symphony Orchestra of India.
Affable and spontaneous, Maestro, as he is revered, yearns to be connected to his Indian roots and to Mumbai, the city of his birth.
Excerpts from our conversation:
Maestro, under your father Mehli Mehta’s benevolent guidance, how did your musical journey begin?
From the day I was born! I had no choice except when I was in school. My father didn’t obsessively train me. Music began in my home every day at around 8 am with him teaching, practicing with his quartet and parts of his orchestra. They rendered works of all the great composers. During his five year New York study trip, my education was through records.
If you were to reminisce about your student days in Vienna, was the transition shocking?
It was an ‘audio shock’. The only sound I had heard was of my father’s Bombay Symphony — half amateur and half Navy band. The wind would sit in their uniforms as they performed! The first time I heard the Vienna Philharmonic, I couldn’t believe my ears. That’s the ideal orchestral sound I emulated as Music Director at Montreal, Los Angeles, etc.
As a legendary conductor, whose influence do you most cherish?
My professor, the great Hans Swarovski. Also, the writings and recordings of Furtwangler and Toscanini. I had a ticket for Furtwangler’s concert in Vienna, but by the time the concert was supposed to happen, he passed away. I could never experience him personally. I attended many rehearsals of Herbert Von Karajan the great conductor in Vienna, in both symphony orchestra and opera, along with those of Karl Böhm, Josef Krips and Rafael Kubelik.
Do you feel Western Classical Music has expanded beyond the trademark European orchestras with more nationalities mastering it?
Today, yes. Especially in China, Japan and Korea, there are some wonderful young musicians who imbibe and absorb music from Europe despite the cultural differences. I have great pleasure in making music with them.
Although Indian and western classical music are starkly diverse, would you feel the two can collaborate on one platform?
I have tried. I was very close to Panditji Ravi Shankar. He opened his heart to me. I can never forget my times with him (chokes with tears). He wrote the first concerto for the London Symphony which he performed with me; the second, we world premiered in New York, then in Los Angeles and we brought it to India with the European Youth Symphony. Many didn’t appreciate it. In Kolkata, it wasn’t a success, to his disappointment. They wanted more of his improvisation rather than him playing along with the orchestra which was not improvising as that’s not a part of our tradition.
Do we have composers of eclectic caliber today, like that of the old masters?
We have very few talented composers today who innovate themselves. I am constantly conducting world premieres of young composers, many of whom are women.
Speaking of which, would you feel conducting has been a male domain?
It was earlier. Not anymore. There are now women conductors who are very talented, especially from Lithuania and Latvia. I hope the Symphony Orchestra of India invites them also.
Would you remember any musical experience for the profoundly spiritual effect it had on you?
There are several masterpieces we listen to. I remember Bruckner’s 8th Symphony conducted by Karl Böhm at the slow movement. I was in a standing room in Vienna. It was such a shattering moment. I felt apart listening to it! Also, Bruckner’s 7th symphony. When he was composing its slow movement, he heard about Wagner’s death. It touched him so deeply that he composed the music to such a high point where he broke apart himself. At the end of the movement, it was like looking at him standing at Wagner’s grave and crying! These are cherished moments.
One aspect of your colourful musical journey that you’d call most fulfilling?
My life’s first concert! It was during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution at the Austro-Hungarian border which had refugee camps. I took the Vienna Academy students to the English camp and played a concert attended by Hungarian refugees running across the border, at the end of which a Hungarian priest blessed us in Hungarian. Although I didn’t understand the language, I feel that blessing has carried me all my life (tearful).
Do you miss Mumbai and speaking in Parsi Gujarati?
I recently visited the home of my birth which I wanted to show my grandson, but I don’t know how we got there. Mumbai has changed so much. Whenever I am there, I offer prayers at the Zoroastrian fire temple which I can’t do back in the US. I yearn to speak Parsi Gujarati, my mother tongue. Mara mai baap sathe hoona khovakhat Gujarati ma boltohato (I’d speak to my parents in Gujarati all the time). But when I speak to my London-educated brother in Gujarati over the phone, he answers in English (chuckles)!
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