Steve Schwartz writes:

>What Mehta did bring to the orchestra was a higher profile through the
>marketing done about him.
>
>I really don't think it was merely a question of marketing, although
>marketing didn't hurt.

When Osawa was appointed to the BSO did the ushers dress in kimonos? Are
the ushers wearing Lederhosen at Avery Fisher Hall?

>I remember a fine Strauss recording, a pretty good Tchaikovsky, and a
>lovely Bruckner 4.  His Turandot isn't shabby either.  While Mehta may not
>be as great a Straussian as Szell or Reiner, a Tchaikovskian as towering as
>Mravinsky, or a Brucknerian on the order of Jochum, Tintner, or
>Furtwaengler, he's by no means a musical nebbish.

Sort of damning with faint praise there, aren't you? What exactly is it
that he _does_ do well? What one recording that Mehta has done would you
consider do you prefer to all other versions? Erich Leinsdorf referred to
conductors who gave average performances all the time as routineers.
That's Mehta to me, a routineer.

>What he also did was make some absolutely dreadful appointments, a process
>he repeated in NY.
>
>Care to name names?

Of course not.  From conversations with musicians in both the LAPO and
NYPO, I've learned there was many a time when he overruled the orchestra
committee at an audition to pick a particular favorite of his.  This might
be one of the reason why he was regularly referred to by many members as
The Bombay Bum.

>Right now, at any rate, the NY Phil probably has one of the greatest
>collections of individual players in the world.

A collection of great players does not necessarily make a great orchestra.
A section player, whether principal or not, has to work with the other
section members.  As an example, the current principal flutist of the BSO,
Jacques Zoon, is a fine player but his use of a wooden flute produces a
very curious section blend.  As a contrary example, the VPO has very few,
if any, players on the level of many of those NYPO players, but as far as
producing a unified sound section by section they have, IMNSHO, no peers.

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