Gilbert Kaplan

Gilbert Edmund Kaplan (March 3, 1941 – January 1, 2016) was an American businessman and financial publisher. He was also an aficionado of the music of Gustav Mahler, and an amateur conductor of Mahler's Symphony No. 2.

Biography Kaplan was born at French Hospital in New York City on March 3, 1941, and grew up in Lawrence on Long Island. His older brother was the composer Joseph Brooks. Kaplan studied at Duke University, and earned a bachelor's degree from The New School for Social Research. He later studied at New York University School of Law.

Kaplan hosted on WNYC and WQXR for more than decade the show Mad About Music until 2012 where he interviewed famous people about their love for music. He was also on the board of WNYC trustees, and in 2000 became an Evening Division faculty member at the Juilliard School.

Kaplan married Lena Biörck, a Swedish interior designer and daughter of Gunnar Biörck, personal physician for the Swedish Royal family, in 1970. The couple had four children. Kaplan died in Manhattan, aged 74, of cancer. In 1981, he began tutelage in conducting with Charles Zachary Bornstein. He rented Avery Fisher Hall in New York for his public conducting debut in 1982, leading the American Symphony and the Westminster Symphonic Choir. Originally, the orchestra had requested that no reviews be published, but Leighton Kerner of The Village Voice breached this requested embargo with a positive review of this performance. Subsequently, Kaplan conducted Mahler's Symphony No 2 in over 100 live performances over the remainder of his life. Mahler's Second Symphony was the only complete work he conducted in public, although he did separately record the Adagietto from Mahler's Symphony No. 5 in a studio recording.

Kaplan owned the autograph manuscript of Mahler's score of his Second Symphony and published a facsimile edition of the score in 1986. Tim Page wrote in The New York Times: "Only now will musicians, scholars and the general public be able to own a facsimile manuscript of one of the composer's symphonies." On 29 November 2016, the manuscript was sold at auction for £4,546,250, a record for any music manuscript at the time. He also owned one of Mahler's batons Both manuscripts were, at one time, on deposit at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. He was co-editor of the new critical edition of the Second Symphony as part of the Complete Critical Edition of Mahler's works.

Kaplan's conducting attracted criticism and praise, most controversially at his December 2008 New York Philharmonic performance. Steve Smith wrote in The New York Times of this concert:

David Finlayson, a trombonist of the New York Philharmonic who performed at this concert, offered a different perspective:

Peter Kenote, a violist in the New York Philharmonic at this concert, likewise commented about Kaplan: The Kaplan Foundation has published facsimile editions of Mahler's autograph manuscript of the Second Symphony, and the song, "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen". The foundation has produced Mahler Plays Mahler, a recording using piano rolls that Mahler made of his own compositions. These rolls are the only documents that exist of Mahler as a performer.

The foundation has also published Mahler Discography (together with editor Péter Fülöp), a guide to 2,774 recordings of Mahler's music; Mahler's Concerts, by Knud Martner, a compilation of the 323 known performances led by Mahler as a conductor or pianist; and The Mahler Album (editor Gilbert Kaplan), an illustrated biography containing all known photographs and a selection of drawings and sculptures of the composer.

Together with Universal Edition, the foundation is co-publisher of two scores of Mahler's Second Symphony: the New Critical Edition (editors Renate Stark-Voit and Gilbert Kaplan) and the Arrangement for Small Orchestra (by Gilbert Kaplan and Rob Mathes); and with C. F. Peters, co-publisher of the New Critical Edition of Mahler's Sixth Symphony, the latter published in 2010 under the general editorship of Reinhold Kubik.

Symphony No. 6 Kaplan underwrote publication of a booklet, The correct movement order in Mahler's Sixth Symphony, which claimed the revised inner movement order of Andante / Scherzo as the single 'correct' order for the inner movements. He wrote a commentary in The New York Times on this subject. Similarly to this pamphlet, Kaplan claimed, in his preface to the 2010 edition of the Sixth Symphony, that the revised order of Andante / Scherzo was the "final" and "unequivocal" decision by Mahler. Kaplan's statement has been criticised as not in accordance with Mahler's actual compositional practices, such as from Herta Blaukopf and David Hurwitz:

Popular culture The 2022 film Tár includes an investment banker and amateur conductor named "Eliot Kaplan". Mark Swed criticized the choice, contrasting the "reptilian wannabe conductor" of the film with the real Kaplan, who he called a "kind man who died seven years ago and who cared deeply about music and people." Director Todd Field said that the character is "Kaplan in name only" and called Gilbert Kaplan "a shining example of absolute courage and inspiration".

Publications Gilbert E. Kaplan: "How Mahler Performed His Second Symphony". The Musical Times, Vol. 127, No. 1718 (May 1986), pp. 266–267+269+271 Gilbert Kaplan: The Mahler Album. Kaplan Foundation in association with Thames and Hudson, New York/London 1995, ; new, expanded edition: Kaplan Foundation, New York, 2011, Gilbert Kaplan: "In One Note of Mahler, a World of Meaning". The New York Times, 17 March 2002 Gilbert Kaplan: The correct movement order in Mahler's Sixth symphony. Kaplan Foundation, New York, 2004, Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 in C minor : Resurrection : facsimile. Kaplan Foundation, New York, 1986, Gustav Mahler: Adagietto. Facsimile, documentation, recording. Gilbert E. Kaplan, ed. Kaplan Foundation, New York, 1992,

Discography Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 in C minor "Resurrection". Benita Valente, soprano; Maureen Forrester, alto; Gilbert E Kaplan; London Symphony Chorus.; London Symphony Orchestra. 1988 From Mahler With Love. Gustav Mahler: Adagietto, from Symphony No. 5; Gilbert E Kaplan; London Symphony Orchestra. 1992 Mahler Plays Mahler. The Welte-Mignon piano rolls. Gilbert Kaplan, Executive Producer. 1993 The Kaplan Mahler edition. 1996. (contains Symphony No. 2, Adagietto from Symphony No. 5, the Mahler piano rolls, recorded recollections of musicians who performed with Mahler, plus a CD-ROM part containing 150 pictures from The Mahler Album) Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2. Latonia Moore, soprano; Nadja Michael, mezzo-soprano; Gilbert Kaplan; Wiener Singverein; Wiener Philharmoniker. Deutsche Grammophon 2003