Founded as early as 1919, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has had a series of very distinguished music directors – Georg Lennart Schnéevoigt, Artur Rodzinski, Otto Klemperer, Alfred Wallenstein and Eduard van Beinum. Bruno Walter, a distinguished Los Angeles resident, had also conducted the orchestra regularly.
Nevertheless, the orchestra never really established a profile as one of America’s major orchestras. At the time, the talk was always about the “Big 5” orchestras of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Chicago.
Then Zubin Mehta arrived in Los Angeles.
Originally invited as a last-minute substitute for guest conductors Fritz Reiner and Igor Markevitch, Mehta established an immediate rapport with the orchestra and a connection with the audience. The circumstances surrounding his appointment as music director is well known and does not need another retelling. Suffice it to say that in 1962, Mehta was appointed music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a marriage that would last until 1978.
On top of Mehta’s many innovations in the city, the most long-lasting legacy of Mehta’s tenure in Los Angeles has to be the many outstanding recordings he made with the orchestra with Decca records. Now Decca has reissued all these fine recordings in a generous 38-CD box – Zubin Mehta/Los Angeles Philharmonic – Complete Decca Recordings.
Having heard all the recordings in this sumptuous box, the first thing one could say is the absolutely beautiful recorded sound, capturing every nuance of the orchestra’s playing. The Decca team of engineers decided early on that the Dorothy Chandler pavilion, while being a fine hall for live performances, was completely unfit as a recording venue. After much scouting, they decided that seemingly unremarkable Royce Hall, on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles, would suit their purpose more than adequately. I cannot say this more emphatically – the orchestra sounds spectacular in these recordings.
The first recordings of Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic appeared in 1967. It was the first time an American orchestra would be recording for a European recording company. This presented some problems for the orchestra management at the time, as the recording company would only pay the orchestral players according to European and not American (unionized) scale. The management had to look for financing for these recordings in order to make up the difference.
Mehta made the wise decision not to push the orchestra to record until he felt it was ready, and that explains the lag time between his taken over the music directorship in 1962 and the first batch of recordings in 1967. By 1967, the Los Angeles Philharmonic had already become a very fine orchestra, as can be attested in these first recordings. By the time Mehta left, judging from recordings of the late 1970’s, the orchestra had become the world class orchestra it is today.
Listening to these recordings, I was struck by the imaginative and musical conducting of both very familiar repertoire as well as more unknown works of the orchestral literature. There is also a palpable love and passion in the music making in every recording. What is more, I felt that every member of the orchestra was really putting his or her heart and soul into these performances. None of these recordings came off as “routine” studio sessions.
There are some recordings that were and are welcomed additions to the catalogue. There are deeply committed performances of Liszt Symphonic Poems – Hunnenschlacht (S105), Orpheus (S98) and Mazeppa(S100), a convincing recording of Stravinsky’s 8 Instrumental Miniatures for 15 players, an absolutely gorgeous reading of Charles Ives Symphony No. 1, with some outstanding playing from the orchestra principals, a wonderful recording of the same composer’s relatively more popular Symphony No. 2 that stands up to the fine recordings by Bernstein and Tilson Thomas, exciting performances of William Kraft’s Concerto for Four Percussion Soloists and Orchestra and Contextures: Riots – Decade ’60, masterful and convincing readings of Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1, Op. 9 and the thorny Orchestral Variations, Op. 31, thrilling performances of Edgard Varèse’s Arcana, Integrales and Ionisation, a performance of Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4 (“The Inextinguishable”) that brings out the rugged beauty of the music, and a beautiful reading of John Williams Suites from the films, Star Wars and Close Encounter of the Third Kind that I find superior to the composer’s own recording. None of these works are, even today, hugely represented in the recording catalogue.
Some of Mehta’s Los Angeles recordings have become acknowledged classics of the phonograph. I had not been a great fan of Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony, but Mehta’s recording of the work made a convert out of me. He minimizes the bombast of the music, and infused the work with not only a sense of grandeur, but a quiet dignity, bringing out the inner beauty of the music that performances sometimes lack.
Listening to the orchestra’s 1967 recording of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, I was struck by how Mehta highlights the contrast between the dramatic sections like Gnomus with the more lighthearted ones like the Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks. In a movement like Gnomus or Bydlo, there is a weightiness of sound that bring out all the drama of the music. Mehta’s pacing and sense of timing in The Great Gate of Kiev is also impeccable; he holds the orchestra back from the explosion of sound until the very end of the work.
Mehta’s recording of Gustav Holst’s The Planets suite, an iconic recording not only for music lovers but audiophiles as well, was certainly exciting and beautifully played. But what caught my ears was the lack of bombast (excitement, certainly) and a great beauty of sound throughout the performance. Again, in the final Neptune movement, Mehta draws us into the mystical and magical sound world created Holst created. The same observations apply to his recording of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, Op. 35, and kudos to the London engineers for capturing the sound of the orchestra so vividly and beautifully.
There are only two concerto recordings – a magisterial performance of Beethoven’s Emperor concerto with Alicia de Larrocha from 1979, apparently Mehta’s final recording with the orchestra, and an absolutely delightful disc titled Concertos in Contrast, featuring four principal players from the orchestra. Other than Haydn’s very familiar Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major, Hob. VIIe/1, the other works certain warrant outstanding performances such as these – Vivaldi’s Flute Concerto in A minor, RV445, Weber’s Concertino for Clarinet and Orchestra in E-flat, Op. 26, Wieniawski’s Polonaise No. 1 in D major, Op. 4 and his Scherzo-Tarantelle, Op. 16. Throughout his tenure in Los Angeles, Mehta had been responsible for hiring most of the musicians as the older players retired, probably the most long-lasting aspect of his legacy. These 1974 performances by the players from the orchestra certainly gives us a hint of the extremely high level of playing by the orchestra.
A 1973 disc – Virtuoso Overtures – gives us, among other things, an absolutely gorgeous and darkly brooding performance of Weber’s Der Freischütz Overture, with perfect intonation and ensemble by the horns at the beginning, as well as an echt Viennese reading of Strauss’ Die Fledermaus Overture. Even the recording, Hits at the Hollywood Bowl, no doubt a project they did for the recording company, receives committed and beautiful performances.
In one instance, we hear two recordings, from different time periods, of the same work – Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor (Op. 36). The earlier recording was one of the orchestra’s first discs for Decca, done in 1967. The second was part of a complete cycle of the composer’s symphonies – a great addition to the catalogue of Tchaikovsky recordings, unfortunately neglected by critics - taped in 1977. As much as the 1967 performance was a fine one, we hear in the 1977 recording what an absolutely great ensemble the Los Angeles Philharmonic had become.
The magnificent recordings of Bruckner’s 4th and 8th symphonies, Mahler’s 3rd and 5th symphonies, Strauss’ Sinfonia domestica (Op. 53), Eine Alpensinfonie (Op. 64), and the tone poems, show Mehta’s affinity for painting large canvases, an absolute grasp of the overriding structure of the works from first note to last. In a record of Mahler Lieder with the incredible Marilyn Horne, I was almost more captivated and fascinated by Mehta’s design of the orchestral writing than even Horne’s unbelievably rich voice. In these recordings especially, we can hear the successful results of Mehta’s efforts to elicit a central European sound from the orchestra. Even in the biggest climaxes and the most dramatic passages, there was never any coarseness in the sound.
Since Mehta’s departure from Southern California, the orchestra has had some highly distinguished music directors, from the dignified Giulini to one of today’s hottest conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, every one of them putting his individual stamp on the orchestra’s sound. The ensemble had moved from its fine home at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to today’s architecturally stunning Walt Disney Concert Hall, where I had the good fortune to attend a concert by Mehta with the orchestra last year. Hearing the orchestra today, I feel that Mehta must be given major credit for creating the world class orchestra we have today.
Zubin Mehta/Los Angeles Philharmonic – Complete Decca Recordings is a testament of the work of one of today’s most honest and dedicated musicians, working with musicians that were sympathetic to his music making, and well served by knowledgeable and musical recording engineers. It has been a richly rewarding musical experience listening to these fine performances once again.
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