Last night (Sept 28 @ 7.30) R3 broadcast a concert by the Israel Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta that they gave in Vienna. The BBC presenter said from “last year … October 2019”. Yours truly was not so sure; turns out it took place a year earlier: https://www.musikverein.at/en/concert/eventid/36035
It was a very listenable concert of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, the highlight being a sparkling and shapely account of Haydn’s B-flat Sinfonia concertante (105 in Hoboken’s Haydn Symphony catalogue) with members of the IPO (named in the above link) as stylish soloists.
Some of the announcer’s commentary may have inferred that this Musikverein date was Mehta’s final appearance there. With the IPO as its music director, yes, he recently stepped-down from this long-held position, for he is a regular conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic at this venue … such as this coming December: https://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/concerts/concert-detail/event-id/10331
The ever-busy (far from “retired”) Mehta has just finished a run of La traviata at La Scala and he has an orchestral concert there tonight. However, the planned Mehta-conducted Milan staging of Luigi Nono’s Intolleranza seems dropped, opening night intended as October 29, but I imagine Covid restrictions have outgunned the personnel demands of this 1960 opera, which was to be double-billed with Schoenberg’s Erwartung.
Then Mehta is off to Florence for a Beethoven cycle with the Maggio Musicale: https://www.maggiofiorentino.com/en/events/zubin-mehta-42/
Sadly, Mehta’s London Philharmonic appearance at the Royal Festival Hall (Nov 18) is Covid-cancelled.
By the way, one of my friends calls me Sherlock Holmes.