Mehta Conducts Mahler 3 at Walt Disney Concert Hall

One of Mahler’s most massive creations, his Third Symphony vies to express the whole world, as the composer expected all symphonies to do. Long-time Mahler champion Zubin Mehta describes the Third—a piece close to his heart—as containing all of nature (“you can smell the Alpine flowers”), complete with nature’s contradictions of endearing beauty and stark brutality. Mehta stirs the vocal and instrumental ensembles into expressions of summer bursting forth, followed by profound communications from the flowers, the forest animals, humankind, and the angels, all capped by a monumental movement conveying Love itself.