An obituary in Friday’s (1/1) Telegraph (U.K.) reports the death on January 1 of Gilbert Kaplan, “an American economist, journalist and businessman who came to wider attention through his determination to be an orchestral conductor and in particular his obsession with Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (the Resurrection), a work that he conducted on more than 100 occasions…‘I am an amateur,’ Kaplan insisted, as he mounted the podiums of the world’s great concert halls…. If so, he was a thorough and obsessive one.” Born in New York on March 3, 1941, Kaplan studied French horn and piano. Trained in economics at Duke University, he embarked on a career in Wall Street finance, and in 1967 founded the magazine Institutional Investor. He discovered the “Resurrection” Symphony in 1965 at Carnegie Hall, in an American Symphony Orchestra performance led by Leopold Stokowski. “The next 17 years were spent learning every aspect of conducting in general and Mahler’s work in particular,” which he recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic. His conducting of Mahler’s “Resurrection” elicited differing opinions from musicians, but “by the time of his death Kaplan … had become a respected scholar on the composer.” Survivors include Kaplan’s wife, Lena Biörck, and their four children.
Posted January 5, 2016
