Zubin Mehta talks to David Shuster

Music is his diplomacy. In the world of classical music, there are few conductors who are as well regarded as Zubin Mehta. He has led the world’s best orchestras, but he is most closely identified with the Israel Philharmonic.

David Shuster: How does it feel to be a representative of Israel around the world?

Zubin Mehta: This orchestra is really the positive face of what the world views Israel today. We are not on the first page. We are on page 56. And I wish all of Israel would be on page 56 — in other words, that Israel to the world would be the arts and sciences. Because that’s what excels in Israel beyond anything else.

But you’ve said in the past that the Israel Philharmonic, it is Israel when it travels around world. What did you mean?

We carry a positive message. We play our concerts. We are not going there with an Israeli flag and talking. There is no propaganda. We play European music in Carnegie Hall. We start the concert with a little Israeli piece, but then we play Brahms and Tchaikovsky. The rest of the tour, we are playing Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony. In other words, if we just wanted to play only Israeli music and only Israeli soloist, it would be different. But we don’t do that. We are a world-class orchestra. We go on the tour as a world-class orchestra. And we, we make music.

And yet there are a lot of people around the world who see the orchestra as an extension of the state of Israel. There have been boycotts. There have been efforts to disrupt some of the performances.

But very few times, I must say. There is only one case, in London two years ago, where they tried to interrupt a concert. But this has never happened before. That was the only time. And I kept on playing the piece as the audience — there was 6,000 of them in London at the Proms Concert — and they were completely on our side. I’m sure many of them sympathized with those who stood with the banner, “Free Palestine.” But they didn’t want to be disturbed at the concert. 

There have also been boycotts of Israeli products? What do you make of these passions, as they are trying to target what you are trying to do?

Well, we are not really targeted at all. So we just carry on. I’ll tell you an example. In 1972, when this incredible tragedy struck the Israeli Olympic team in Munich, we were in São Paulo on a tour. It happened to be that that day was the national day of Brazil. Well, the orchestra hearing the news of people killed in Munich — that night, we played Mahler’s First Symphony like our life depended on it. The symphony ends with a great musical victory. And they played that victory that night. So, you know, that was an example of extreme tragedy thousands of miles away. And we showed that the spirit goes on. And we are not disturbed by it onstage, and we showed what we can do under the circumstances.

You’ve had this affinity, this association with Israel for more than 50 years.

They adopted me, I adopted them. I am a great friend of the country. I may not agree with everything that’s going on, but I’m a great friend of Israel. And this orchestra has become my family. You know, it was founded in 1936. It’s a young orchestra. The great polish violinist [Bronislaw] Huberman, who founded the orchestra with exiles from Europe — already in those days Palestine, it was a British mandate — he convinced hundreds of people and families to come to Palestine, and the orchestra was called the Palestine Symphony Orchestra. And they went to Egypt to perform with the guest conductors. So I inherited that orchestra, almost, in 1961. It was orchestra of the Austrian Empire, let’s say. There were Austrians, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, et cetera. Then they retired, and in the ’70s and ’80s came the immigration from the Soviet Union. This was an incredible cultural injection in our orchestra. We didn’t engage them just because they came from Moscow. They had to pass a very difficult audition. And we didn’t know who they were because they were behind a curtain.

And you still do that to this day? You do auditions behind a curtain?

Yes. So every Soviet — ex-Soviet — musician that plays in the orchestra has won an audition against 20 or 25 people, even other Russians.

You’ve spent a lot of time promoting music education for the Palestinians. Will there come a day when one of these students is able to sit behind the curtain and successfully audition to become part of the orchestra?

It’s my dream. It is my dream that an Israeli Arab will sit amongst Israeli Jews and make music. And it’s not going to be far. Because I have a program in the north of Israel, in the cities of Shriram and Nazareth, where we have over 250 young kids studying classical music, primarily with their teacher but supervised by the Israel Philharmonic. We have wonderful charitable donors who support this program. And in the Tel Aviv University, there is a school of music where we teach Israelis and foreign students the art of playing in orchestras. We already have seven or eight Arabs from the north who are high enough technically to be at that school. Seven or eight kids have now come from the north to Tel Aviv, study there, and sometimes we take one or two with the orchestra as substitutes. The process is working. And one of these days we’ll shift curtain and — surprise! — there will be an Arab.

And what will that feel like both to you and to the orchestra?

The orchestra has no problems with that. We have Arab soloists playing with the orchestra. There are over 1 million Israeli Arabs as Israelis living within today’s boundaries of Israel. And they should be included as one of us.

You sympathize with the Palestinians who are opposed to the settlements.

I am opposed to the settlements. I don’t want to make a big discussion out of it. I’m just telling you. I think settlements — to the future of both Palestine and Israel — are counterproductive. But this is for not only this government of Israel but also the people who are pushing them from the outside to negotiate as soon as possible.

You’ve said that the Palestinians bear some responsibility because there have been attacks not on the settlements but on Israel proper?

Well, there are fanatics on both sides. I would not say a majority at all. There is a minority in Israel and on the other side too that want the status quo to continue. Those people have to be convinced or just not paid attention to. And people who are negotiating should just go on in a positive direction.

With the Israeli Philharmonic, there is also a special — I suppose — sensitivity because many Holocaust survivors recoil at the idea of playing Wagner, which was a favorite of the Nazis. You tried, with good intentions, to get the Israel Philharmonic to play it. It didn’t work out. You didn’t play it. Would you ever try again?

We will. But we have to have patience. I hope it happens in my lifetime. But there are still quite a few people with tattooed numbers on their arms. They are revered saints in Israel. We have to respect them. It’s not that they hate the music of Wagner. It’s that the music transports them back to the time of terror. And we want to avoid that.

Is there one moment that stands out in your career that you saw in front of you or that you witnessed?

Well, I’m a musician. As I said, it’s the music that makes me awestruck. It’s the interpretation by some of my colleagues. But if you talk about an occasion, this orchestra has had many occasions which go down in their history as being very vitally significant. First time we played in Berlin after the war, 1971. The Germans were really with tears in their eyes. Especially at the end of the concert, when we played the Israeli anthem.

And what was that like for you and members of the orchestra?

I’m neither Jewish nor Israeli nor German. I was proud and honored to be part of this. Daniel Barenboim was our soloist at that concert. It was an occasion that nobody will forget. Another occasion was 1982, we went across the border into Lebanon. In those days, there was this wall between the southern Lebanese army and the north and Fatah, et cetera. The Israelis had erected a good fence, where doctors were treating wounded Lebanese. We went across this border into southern Lebanon into a tobacco field with the help of the Israeli border police. We erected a stage, and we played a concert where only southern Lebanese came to this concert. After this concert, they rushed to the stage, they climbed on the stage, they were hugging the musicians. This is the Lebanon and Israel I would like to see today. Unfortunately, then in 1983 came the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, for which the southern Lebanese were very grateful in the beginning. I think the Israelis stayed too long. The same southern Lebanese turned out to be the first suicide bombers. If you can imagine. This is how history turns — through, forgive my saying so, mistakes of leaders.

The relationship with Israel — you’ve described it as a marriage. Marriage has its ups and downs. 

Ups and downs with Israelis is a matter of daily discussion. We are a family. We are a family that, since we are cooperative orchestra, we don’t have a board of directors that raises money. It’s a cooperative orchestra that decides economic policy and music policy, economic policy by themselves, musical policy with me as their adviser.

In addition to Israel, you’ve also had relationships with the New York Philharmonic. You were a conductor here in New York for 13 years. You’ve also been associated with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic. You have had very long relationships with them in a field that is sometimes notorious for conductors and musicians hopping around.

I’ve never hopped around. When I was in Los Angeles for 16 years, I also had the Israel Philharmonic — that’s where I would pendulate. But with the Berlin and Vienna philharmonics, I’ve never been music director. But I’ve conducted them every single season since 1961. I’ve passed my 50-year mark with both orchestras, as with the Israelis too.

You’ve also led orchestras in Sarajevo, also in Kashmir. There’s something about you and conflict that seems to sort of draw each other. What is that?

We must never stop using our art to help people, to bring people together. In Sarajevo, it was in the war in 1994. The Bosnian war was still going on, and we played a concert in the bombed courtyard of an Islamic library. One of the first things the Serbs bombed was the house of books. So we played in that courtyard. Because of the rubble around us, no public could be allowed. It was only for television. But we did the rehearsals in the nonbombed theater, where three or four times it was full and Sarajevo public came to listen to us rehearsing. In Kashmir, it was my lifelong dream to have Muslims and Hindus in my country sit together and listen to music. I didn’t change the history of Kashmir from the end of that concert. But they sat together, and they heard Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, and I think they went away with a smile on their face. There was some remnant of peace in their hearts, I’m sure.

India is very important to you. You grew up in Bombay. I wonder if you can briefly describe your path from India to Israel.

I’m still an Indian with my passport. I studied for seven years in Vienna. I got a call from the Israel Philharmonic that a very venerable conductor, Eugene Ormandy, was ill and they had nobody and they had heard of me because I had just conducted in Philadelphia — was in 1961. I went there. It’s very important to know that every conductor gets a first chance because of these older conductors falling sick. Then they invited me the second time. That’s important. Because if I went there to help them out and nothing musically important happened between us, they would have said, “Thank you very much,” and I would have never seen them again. But they invited me a second time and a third time, et cetera, et cetera. Therefore started this incredible friendship with me and the Israel Philharmonic and Israel.

And in 1981 they made you music director for life.

Well, any conductor given that honor is something you just dream of. It doesn’t come every day.

Why did you become a conductor? Why not play an instrument?

[I] always wanted to be. My father founded the Bombay Symphony Orchestra, and when he came back from America, he continued as a soloist and conductor. I would prepare the music parts for him. I would put the music on the stands. I was his assistant. I just always wanted to be associated with that orchestra. Then of course, through his love of symphonic music, which he brought and imbibed in me, that’s the music and that’s the life I always wanted.

You are 78 years old. How long do you want to keep doing this?

I’m not going to die in a sanatorium. 

Do you want to die in front of an orchestra?

Why not?

If somebody had to describe your legacy and you could write it, what would it be?

That I tried to be as honest a musician. That I tried with the music to bring people together. That I spent as much time with my family as I possibly could, which was never enough.

I understand you are a fan of the late Freddie Mercury, from the rock ’n’ roll group Queen, though you don’t necessarily like rock ’n’ roll music. Can you explain that?

I was not really a fan. But in his obituary, I read that he was a Parsi like me. I come from a very tiny minority in India. He was one of us. Freddie Mercury didn’t tell me that. When I read his obituary, his real name was printed — Bulsara. It’s a very common Parsi name. Since then, I’ve been watching him on MTV. He’s a great performer. I’m not at home with his music, which is not also a criticism. It’s just not my stuff. But he’s a really great performer. I’m sorry I didn’t meet him.

Do you ever watch music contest shows like “American Idol” here in the United States?

No, I’m doing concerts when those shows go up. I don’t watch television in the evenings.

But the concept of amateur musicians getting up in front of millions of people and maybe they have a hidden talent and that coming out — is there anything about that —

I could tell you one thing, if I would send on one of these shows a talented American, German or Israeli violinist or pianist, they would wipe all of them out. There is such talent. I’m talking about teenage classical musicians who are superb. They should be able to compete too. But I don’t think the judges can judge them. They don’t have the education for it. Now I’ve insulted all of them. I may be wrong.

That’s OK, Harry Connick Jr. and Keith Urban —

I don’t know them.

Is there, finally, you mention you are traveling a lot and don’t get a chance to watch much TV.  How do you decompress after your concerts, after your tours?

I play backgammon with my wife.  I go to Indian restaurants.  In every city where I am at home in, I know exactly which restaurant to go to, they know exactly what food I like.  I’ve gotten pretty well settled everywhere.

This interview has been condensed and edited.