By Eileen Wingard
The loyalty and love of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) musicians for their esteemed conductor was reflected in each phrase as they followed Mehta’s controlled and meaningful gestures. The orchestra was also celebrating its 75th birthday.
Zubin Mehta was born in 1936, the year that violinist Bronislaw Huberman formed the Palestine Orchestra with Jewish instrumentalists from Germany and Eastern Europe, rescuing them from the Nazi horror. Huberman enlisted the help of the greatest conductor of the time, Arturo Toscanini, to direct the fledgling orchestra in its premiere concerts.
1936 was also the year Toscanini led his final concert with the New York Philharmonic, the orchestra for which Zubin Mehta was destined to become the longest tenured conductor.
With the Israelis, Mehta has a special bond. He first conducted the IPO in 1961, the same year that he took over the reigns of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Eight years later, the remarkable young maestro was selected as permanent conductor of the IPO. In 1981, Mehta was named their “Conductor for Life.”
A recent Los Angeles concert was the IPO’s final performance on a tour that included dates in Florida, New Jersey, New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, and now, Los Angeles.
The acoustics in the Frank Gehry-designed Disney Hall brought every note, every dynamic to full-blooming life. The concert opened with Haydn’s “Miracle” Symphony. The four movement work for the classical-sized orchestra (timpani, strings, double flutes, oboes, bassoons, horns and trumpets) was characterized by a bright presence, lovely solos by the principal oboe, Bruce Weinstein, and clean, graceful melodies.
Mahler’s 5th Symphony received a spectacular reading. A long, emotional work, it opened with a lone trumpet theme which repeated throughout and was beautifully played by Yigal Meltzer. The second movement’s stormy, angst-ridden climaxes where particularly poignant, with six French Horns reinforcing the frenzy. The Scherzo’s lilting laendler brought moments of sheer musical joy. A magical interlude was when the first-chair string players, plucking their strings, imitated the distant strumming of a guitar. Principal horn, James Madison Cox, shone in his beautiful solos, whether bold declamations or the sad Chassidic sounding commentary at the end of cadences. The many fugal passages were executed with precision and excitement as Mehta commanded the IPO.
The audience was peppered with Hollywood celebrities and prominent members of the Los Angeles Jewish Community. My son Dan, who joined me for the evening, identified the actor, George Siegel, sitting a few rows ahead of us and was thrilled to exchange a few words with the Hollywood icon.
Afterwards, we greeted a few of our orchestra friends in their hotel as they brought down their luggage for the next morning’s plane ride back to Tel Aviv. There was Lior Eitan, principal piccolo player, who stayed with us in our San Diego home when the Kiriyat Ono Band toured the US some three decades ago. There was violist Avraham (Booma) Levental, soon to retire, Russian-born violinist Rimma Kaminkovsky and cellist Dmitri Golderman who our friend, violist Rachel Kam, brought to my daughter Myla’s place after the IPO’s last San Diego concert. On stage, we saw Principal flute Yossi Arnheim, whom I visited in Tel Aviv last December.
As with several of their other concerts, the Los Angeles audience saw about two dozen loud demonstrators, marching with signs, trying to disuade the people from attending and calling for “an end to the occupation.”
Judging from the capacity audience, no one heeded their call not to go in, but the demonstrations underlined the problems Israel continues to face.
May the time come when the IPO can travel throughout the world without the level of security it now requires. The IPO. for its 75 years of existence, has been Israel’s finest cultural emissary as it goes throughout the world. It has made historic visits to Japan, Germany, Argentina, Poland, Hungary, Russia, China and India.The IPO is at the forefront of cultural diplomacy and maintains its prominence as one of the great orchestras of the world.
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Wingard is a former violinist with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra and is a freelance music writer based in San Diego. She may be contacted at eileen.wingard@sdjewishworld.com