One of Gustav Mahler’s greatest champions, Leonard Bernstein, described the experience of conducting his symphonies by saying, “To play a Mahler symphony, you have to give it your whole heart and body and soul and everything.” Everything is no doubt an appropriate word to describe Mahler’s appeal to audiences because the extremes and internal battles of the composer—Eastern and Western traditions, his Jewish identity and Catholic conversion, unrestrained joy and bleak agony—are often traversed in the same monumental work. It is little wonder why conducting Mahler symphonies is seen as a major achievement, and this season three legendary conductors—Zubin Mehta, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Gustavo Dudamel—offer their batons and interpretations in tackling the music of everything.