Mehta and the Israel Phil wow the public

            Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic have long been a fixture of our seasons. In fact, both conductor and orchestra hold the record of visits to our city. They genuinely enjoy being here , where they are always received with enthusiasm.

            They are also the fourth highly ranked combination of the year, after Dudamel/Simón Bolívar, Nagano/Montreal and Jansons/Concertgebouw. Critics will be hard put to elect one of them as conductor and orchestra of 2013.

            The Israelis are hard workers: four concerts in as many days. And Mehta at 77 is an amazing case of vitality; he looks splendidly fit, in full mental and physical control. I heard two of the four sessions: the ones at the Colón as non-subscription nights, Saturday 24 and Tuesday 27.

            The others were a closed night for the Jewish community on Monday 26 at the Colón (two symphonies that have a lot in common, Dvorák´s Seventh and Brahms´ First) and an open air midday concert at the Puente Alsina. I dislike open air symphonic music, especially in Winter. The event was billed as part of the International Tango Festival, but it was hardly that, for they played just one tango; the rest was habitual symphonic repertoire: Verdi´s Overture to "La Forza del Destino", Mozart´s Symphony Nº 40, three pieces by Johann Strauss II plus some Ravel.

            The concerts of August 24 and 27 had one characteristic: they were made up of just two masterpieces. On the 24^th: Richard Strauss´ imposing 35-minute tone poem "Also sprach Zarathustra" and Tchaikovsky´s Symphony Nº 4. On the 27^th: Mozart´s Fortieth and Mahler´s mighty Fifth. Mehta conducted everything from memory!

            "...Zarathustra" is a tough nut to crack, and although it is a marvellous score, it doesn´t get many playings, due to its enormous complexity. It  attempts one of the most difficult things: to find a musical language convincing enough to transmute Nietzsche´s philosophy into music. Although Kubrick´s "2001" engraved the Introduction indelibly in those who saw it and engendered a spate of recordings, after a decade or so the score again began to be neglected. It certainly shouldn´t: it is one of Strauss´most lofty inspirations, as well as being enormously modern for a work writen in 1895/6.

            One fascinating fact: it was Strauss himself that premiered the score at the Colón back in 1920, and again the composer did it when he conducted no less than the Vienna Philharmonic at our theatre in 1923. Give me a time machine...

            Mehta´s choice was audacious though understandable: he is Indian but of Parsee family, and that community has an affinity with Zoroastrism (Zarathustra is Zoroaster). Of course, Nietzsche innovates in his aphorisms, and there´s the touchy matter for Israelis of his exaltation of the Superman in the sense of a spiritually evolved man that goes beyond our current Homo sapiens. The Nazis distorted this as they distorted Wagner´s Siegfried. But the Straussian music goes beyond such ideological matters and you can enjoy it deeply, as also happens with "Ein Heldenleben" ("A Hero´s Life"), even if it is an exalted ego-trip.

            I have to report, however, that I wasn´t completely satisfied by the performance. Mehta is a master conductor with great technical capacity and the Israelis form  a major outfit, so a lot of what they did was admirable. However, Mehta has always had a sanguine temperament and although in his mature years he is much less prone to effects than of yore, he doesn´t give to his phrasing of the most German and intimate passages the affinity of, say, Karajan. And the fantastic contrapunctal complexity gave trouble to some players, especially the horns.

            After the interval all was well. Mehta has given here memorable readings of Tchaikovsky´s Fifth and he obviously understands perfectly the exalted and ultrabrilliant Fourth, giving it a solid, completely orthodox reading, wonderfully well played.  The encores were, as he said, more Tchaikovsky (a charming, relaxed traversal of the great Waltz from "Swan Lake") and the tango they learnt for these BA presentations: "Por una cabeza" by Gardel and Le Pera, in a good symphonic arrangement.

            "The Fortieth" is Mozart´s most famous symphony, due to that extremely catchy first subject of the opening movement. Mehta´s views are entirely traditional and musicianly, with no obtrusive excentricities nor any historicist bias. The orchestra played very well.

            But Mahler´s 70-minute Fifth was the main attraction. In an astonishing coincidence, this great score was programmed thrice in 15 days; the others, Diemecke/B.A.Phil, and Calderón/National Symphony. As I´m writing this paragraph,on Thursday 29, tomorrow I will hear Calderón´s interpretation, where I´m sure he will again prove himself our foremost Mahlerian.

            However, it is unlikely that conductor and orchestra will quite match the superb results of what probably was the highest point of this visit by the Israelis. As I recently wrote on Diemecke´s reading, I won´t elaborate on the work´s wonders. So I will just say that Mehta´s comprehension and knowledge of this music were those of total immersion. I particularly admired the continuity he obtained, so that the brusque joins between startlingly diverse sections flowed with total naturalness. And his "tempi" were quite impeccable.

            As to the orchestra, although everyone played with surprising accuracy, there were two particular heroes: the trumpet playing the opening of the symphony and the "obligato" horn in the  Scherzo. Plus the glorious sound of the strings in the Adagietto, expressive but never mawky.

For Buenos Aires Herald