Zubin Mehta is back in Mumbai to perform for the first time with the Symphony Orchestra of India

Zubin Mehta gears up for his performance with Symphony Orchestra of India

After arriving in Mumbai earlier this week, celebrated conductor Zubin Mehta has spent a good amount of time on stage. He has been rehearsing with the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI), with whom he is performing for the first time. “I am quite impressed with the musicians I have interacted with,” he says.

Zubin will conduct two shows at the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre on August 19 and 21. The line up for both shows will be the same, beginning with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s ‘Overture to The Marriage Of Figaro’, the famed operatic comedy, and continuing with Franz Schubert’s Eighth (Unfinished) Symphony, for which the early 19th century Austrian composer completed only two movements.

Interestingly, Gustav Mahler’s complex Symphony No 1 (Titan), premiered in 1889, has been slotted for the second half. “It’s a very ambitious call to play this piece by Mahler. But the musicians have been practising even before I landed, and I am confident we will have a great performance. Earlier, we had considered playing Beethoven’s Third Symphony, Eroica. But after discussing with NCPA (National Centre for the Performing Arts) chairman Khushroo N. Suntook, we arrived at this conclusion,” he says.

The shows are being organised by the NCPA and the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation (named after Zubin Mehta’s father). For those who can’t make it to the Jamshed Bhabha, a simultaneous screening has been organised at the neighbouring Tata Theatre on August 19.

Zubin Mehta was scheduled to perform with SOI in November last year, but the shows were cancelled as doctors had advised him to take three months rest. Despite health issues over the past few years, the 87-year-old maestro is as sharp as ever, displaying a quick sense of repartee. For instance, he talks about the successful The Three Tenors concert and album of 1990, featuring singers Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras, with him as conductor. “The record label Decca made lots of money from the album. But we didn’t receive anything. The only thing I got from them was a Christmas card, but I hope they made good use of whatever they earned,” he says.

Born in Mumbai on April 29, 1936, Zubin Mehta showed an inclination for music from an early age. His father, Mehli Mehta, was a well-known conductor and violinist in Mumbai, and his mother Tehmina supported his love for music. Once Zubin realised his future lay in music, he left for Vienna at the age of 18 after completing his schooling at St Mary’s School in Mumbai.

Naturally, he developed a fascination for the Viennese style, including composers Josef Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg, besides Johann Strauss Jr’s waltzes. He studied the work of many other non-Austrian composers in detail, including Johannes Brahms, Richard Wagner and Igor Stravinsky, though his concerts have also included Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. He also closely followed the contrasting styles of conductors Arturo Toscanini and Wilhelm Furtwangler.