Born in Mumbai in 1936, maestro Zubin Mehta has spent his decades-long career conducting some of the world’s finest orchestras. Maestro Mehta has served as Music Director for the Israel Philharmonic since 1977, and, beginning the following year, took on the role of Music Director for the New York Philharmonic, a position he held for 13 years, the longest tenure in that storied ensemble’s history. Showered with accolades and awards, Mehta has long since established himself not only as India’s single greatest contribution to the world of Western classical music, but as a living giant of the international music world.
In 2011, Maestro Mehta travelled to Sydney to conduct the Australia World Orchestra in performances of works by Mahler and Stravinsky for that ensemble’s second season. Consisting of Australian musicians culled from posts with many of the world’s finest musical ensembles, the AWO assembles bi-annually for just two weeks to perform in Sydney and Melbourne. Coming to India for its first international tour, the AWO will be joined by acclaimed Soprano Greta Bradman, daughter of legendary cricketer Don Bradman.
You studied Western classical as a young man around the time of Independence. What was the experience like at that time in Mumbai?
My home was the centre of all Western classical music in Mumbai because of my father. He started an orchestra, he conducted it, he was the concertmaster, he formed his own string quartet and all the rehearsals were in my home. He used to teach, he had many pupils. I heard music from morning to night. So I had no choice. I did not hear Indian music in my home. I heard Western music.
Was there a large audience for it then? What composers did you hear most frequently at the time?
I’ll tell you what: What I heard most frequently was chamber music. Quartets by Mozart. Quintets by Dvorak and Mozart and Brahms. In the orchestra — you know I was only 9 years old when my father left for the U.S. — and then the orchestra almost disbanded. When he came back, he reformed the orchestra and played as a soloist, so I heard all the violin concertos played by my father — Tchaikovsky, Brahms, etc — and he would also prepare the orchestra to play with occasional musicians from abroad, people such as Yehudi Menuin. So that was the sort of musical life—the world of Western classical music sort of revolved round him.
What about other cities? Did they have a significant culture of Western classical in those days?
My father used to go to Calcutta to play with the Calcutta Symphony Orchestra, and occasionally, he went to Delhi. Once he went to play with the Hyderabad Symphony Orchestra, and that’s a story in itself. The Nizam had an orchestra 12 months of the year to play just for his birthday. When Hyderabad was sort of woven into the Indian democracy, the orchestra had a conductor and he invited my father saying, ‘Look, we’re not a state anymore; we want to go to Delhi.’
There were lots of little musical incidents at the time. Once, my father was playing the Brahms concerto in Delhi in the presence of Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, and the Brahms concerto has quite a plaintive solo for the oboe in the second movement. And this oboe attracted a cobra outside in the gardens, and the cobra was killed outside the concert hall. It was attracted to the sound, poor thing, and was just coming to the concert hall!
Has the culture for Western classical music changed over the years?
Well, in Mumbai it has. With the advent of the new concert hall, there’s the chamber music hall where they give a festival every December and the Symphony Orchestra gives a lot of concerts, so there, surely, they have a public of their own, and I think they’re doing a very good job too. They even do opera once in a while, which is wonderful. So there is a certain life around the NCPA.
And in other cities? How did you select the works that you would be performing on this tour?
Well, I have to see what I’ve performed before so as not to repeat from the last two or three visits and then to perform the masterpieces of the classical repertoire, which the orchestra loves to play. So we’re doing the big symphony of Schubert, which I haven’t done in Mumbai as far as I can remember, and the Brahms Second Symphony. We have soloists from the orchestra and then a young lady singing coloratura arias who is the granddaughter of (Australian cricketer) Donald Bradman. She auditioned for me in Vienna and I found her talented, so I thought it would be nice to bring her to India.
The Mehli Mehta Foundation is active in music education in Mumbai. Tell us about the educational component of the AWO tour.
I am constantly in touch with the foundation. I send them teachers from Europe to work with the children. For the tour, the children will come to rehearsals. The foundation also goes into poorer areas of the city to teach. These children, who are learning — there are about 100 to 150 kids — will grow up to become, if not great musicians, certainly music lovers. And they will be our audience.
Is there a difference from city to city in the way the orchestras you bring are received?
No, no. Indian audiences, from what I remember — in Mumbai, in Delhi, once in Calcutta with the New York Philharmonic — are receptive. People who come to concerts, love it. I just spoke to the presenter in Delhi: we’re giving two concerts there (with the AWO) and he was wondering if we could give a third. He feels that in Delhi, he can have such a big public. In Delhi, I don’t know how much classical is played now, but I can tell you one thing: there has to be a concert hall built. In a country like India, with a growing economy, that the capital has no concert hall, I think is a shame. And I don’t mean only a concert hall for Western classical music: Indian music needs it, too.
India Tour
For its first international tour, the AWO will travel to India under Maestro Mehta’s baton, performing works by Brahms, Mozart, and Schubert, including a selection of arias to be performed by soprano Greta Bradman.
The largest Australian ensemble ever to travel India, the AWO will perform at the NCPA in Mumbai on October 25 and 26, at the Music Academy in Chennai on October 28, and at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Delhi on October 31.
