“Of the many words written about Mehta over the years, ‘subtle’ has rarely been one of them. His nearly five-decade professional career has propelled him from a musical home in Mumbai (then called Bombay) through a prestigious apprenticeship in Vienna to the head of the most demanding orchestras on three continents. Along the path from prodigy to graying star he has emerged as perhaps the most dashing personality in the ostensibly staid world of classical music, the embodiment of a quickening cultural globalization that he has harnessed often in service of his beliefs, artistic and otherwise.”