Zubin Mehta’s return to Bruckner’s Eighth with the Los Angeles Philharmonic was a homecoming defined more by presence than by sound. A one-time Angeleno who still keeps a residence here – and whose 1974 Decca recording of the symphony with the Philharmonic remains one of the boldest documents of his early Bruckner vision – Mehta is woven deeply into the orchestra’s history. After withdrawing from several European engagements, his appearance alone drew a surge of affection: he was wheeled onstage, helped carefully to the podium and seated. Once there, he barely moved for the next 90+ minutes, the performance unfolding with him as witness rather than driver, his gestures reduced to essentials.
The performance also absorbed its own limitations; the 60 strings lacked the once identifiable LA Phil sonority and weight. Part of this owed to intensity and blend; part, perhaps, to configuration. With the double basses placed on the left behind the cellos, they weren’t getting the clear rhythmic grounding they do when sitting next to the timpani; for whatever reason, the low end never projected the foundational weight that Bruckner’s architecture requires. And while the warmth deficit lay mostly in the strings, the brass told a more mixed story: the principal horn played with eloquence and poise and the four Wagner tubas, well blended, were a quiet pleasure. And although the trumpets were almost always too loud, tipping the balance forward whenever they entered, Mehta didn’t resist any of this; he simply accepted the texture as it arrived, letting the sonority remain as it was.
Within that softened frame, however, individual lines emerged with striking clarity. The woodwinds, especially the principal oboe, supplied some of the most eloquent playing of the afternoon. Midway through the first movement came the performance’s most arresting moment: after a broad orchestral proclamation, the cellos and basses released the main theme in a dark, murmuring descent; a lone oboe answered high above, its shape inverted, with the violins hovering faintly between them. Mehta didn’t mold the exchange; he simply left space around it. The silence felt alive.
Tempos, too, reflected Mehta’s late style. Compared with his Israel Philharmonic recording from 1992 and his Royal Concertgebouw live performance, the first two movements were slower by two or three minutes apiece; the Adagio was faster by three or four, and the Finale slower by the same amount. The Scherzo, usually a juggernaut of pounding propulsion, arrived steadier and gentler, its rough-hewn joy softened into something almost pastoral.
The Adagio served as the emotional nucleus. Mehta avoided a great arch toward transcendence, offering instead a long, reflective unfolding. About seven minutes in, a surprising warmth broke through: the strings suddenly deepened in color, opening a brief window onto the orchestra’s better profile. Flute and clarinet solos floated upward as if rediscovering their own voices. Time seemed to stretch and relax.
The Finale began firmly but without urgency. Bruckner’s vast cumulative structures felt less like an ascent toward revelation than a wide, dignified landscape gradually illuminated. The closing pages, which can blaze like noon, instead arrived as a gentle radiance – distant, accepting, and strangely moving.
When it was over, Mehta rose slowly, acknowledging each section with care. The ovation was emotional, grateful, unmistakably affectionate. The concertmaster brought him flowers. At 89 – long past the firebrand who grew up with this orchestra – Mehta opened quiet doors into the music’s interior world, revealing contours we may have dreamed were there but had never heard until now.
