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The new young conductors have come down from the mountain. One of Ozawa's Toronto musicians says he "is the kind of guy you want to have a drink with—which is my idea of a compliment." The Cologne Opera orchestra refers to Kertesz as "a gentle persuader" who will seek out a player at intermission and shake his hand for a passage well done. Mehta calls all his Los Angeles musicians by first name, mixes and jokes with them easily, sometimes refuses social invitations unless the entire orchestra is included. He believes that, in addition to injecting a bracing esprit into the orchestra, his relaxed methods produce better music. "With the old tyrants, the rehearsal was the high point, the performance a letdown," he says. "I'm always telling my orchestra it will be different in performance, before the public, where I make music on the spot. In rehearsals, I'm the doctor with the stethoscope. In performances, I'm the gypsy."
Thinking Dark. As the doctor, Mehta has shown a practical talent for ministering to an ailing ensemble. When he arrived in Los Angeles in 1962, the demoralized orchestra had been without a permanent conductor for four years. "It could play anything, but it had no style, no sound, and was undisciplined musically," Mehta says. "I was engaged to fix it." He began by holding sectional rehearsals for the strings, the weakest part of the orchestra; then he fostered competition throughout the ranks by starting a system of shifting assignments, giving promotions and changing seating arrangements as he saw fit. To enrich the ensemble's tone, he persuaded a local foundation to put up $300,000 for new instruments, especially strings, then shopped around the world himself to find them (his prizes: a $75,000 Stradivari violin for the concertmaster, a $50,000 Strad for the principal cellist).
Above all, Mehta worked to burnish the overall sound of his orchestra after the model of the Vienna Philharmonic. Where many U.S. ensembles have a brilliant, knife-edge sound and a trip-hammer attack, the Viennese exude a darker, more rounded quality, and their attack on big chords starts slightly behind the beat, then mushrooms. "Think dark," Mehta counseled his musicians. "Vrrraaaah!" he sang in imitation of the attack he wanted. The result is a warm, rich-sounding American unit, well on the way to Mehta's goal of "the togetherness of playing, the unity of thought that they have in Philadelphia and Cleveland."
Mehta has proved that he can touch and inspire the musicians who work with him. Great soloists praise his accompaniments: 21-year-old Cellist Jacqueline Du Pre says, "He provides a magic carpet for you to float on"; 80-year-old Pianist Artur Rubinstein adds, "Incredible facility, this fellow—he is a universal musician." As for orchestra musicians, Los Angeles Philharmonic Cellist Kurt Reher recalls that at Mehta's first rehearsal with the orchestra, "within two beats we were entranced. It seemed this young man had the