The Los Angeles Philharmonic was founded in 1919 by William Andrews Clark Jr, a copper industrialist. The orchestra has had a string of famous conductors at the helm, among others Amsterdam’s own Eduard van Beinum and the German Otto Klemperer fleeing his Nazi controlled home country. The orchestra has a good reputation for contemporary music.
It is also known for the famous venues it has at its disposal. In Summertime it plays at the Hollywood Bowl, an outdoors venue that was founded in the same year as the orchestra. Maybe the best known however is the Walt Disney Concert Hall, an impressive building by Frank Gehry. A building that is now clad in metal, partly inspired by the Guggenheim in Bilbao (also by Gehry). However, it was originally supposed to be in stone.
Zubin Mehta is the conductor on this recording. He was appointed without consent of the chief conductor at the time, Georg Solti. As a result, Solti left and Mehta stayed. Something similar happened with the appointment of Esa-Pekka Salonen 30 years later. Mismanagement can be a tradition.