One Work Wonder

Gilbert Kaplan is a former economist who conducts one symphony. Ane he does it very well. His second career “has to be one of the strangest acts of wish fulfillment in musical history, not quite on a par in historical importance with Gustav Mahler’s becoming conductor of the Vienna State Opera in 1897, but possessing its own odd grandeur. Mr. Kaplan is doing what he regards as the definitive “Resurrection” Symphony with the orchestra that Mahler conducted when the work was first performed 108 years ago. But the Vienna Philharmonic is one of about 50 orchestras that Mr. Kaplan, who is not a professional musician, has conducted in the Mahler Second Symphony.”