Believe it or not, this is
Zubin Mehta's third recording of
Mahler's Third. You'd think the A&R people of the world would have learned by now. But then, since
Mehta's whole career is proof that you can fool enough of the A&R people enough of the time to sustain an international career, the listener should not be surprised to find that someone someday lets
Mehta record all of
Mahler's symphonies. Be that as it may,
Mehta's Decca Third with the
Israel Philharmonic from the '70s was blunt and dumb, his Sony Third with the
Israel Philharmonic from the '90s was blunter and dumber, and now his Farao Classics Third with
Orchester der Bayerischen Staatsoper recorded in Vienna's Musikvereins on September 16, 2004, is the worst yet, a vapid and vulgar interpretation performed with disdain by the
Bavarian Orchestra. There are moments of something finer -- the quiet intimacy of the return of the main theme in the finale, for example -- but the turgid trombones of the opening fanfare and the galumphing tympani in the drunken marches, the Walt Disney flowers and the Looney Tune woodland creatures, the tipsy horn players and the blowzy
Marjana Lipovsek, and especially the parody of ecstasy with the bum's rush accelerando in finale's coda. These things are more than insensitive or rude or uncouth or even offensive: they are profoundly vulgar. Farao's sound is vivid and immediate, but some listeners might have wished they had edited out the overly enthusiastic member of the audience who bursts into apparently spontaneous applause right at the end of the opening movement.