This month, I learned about this remarkable story via a scathing profile in the NYT that was originally published in 2008. Kaplan was a wealthy magazine publisher who lived out a dream to conduct Mahler's Second Symphony. He lived out that dream about 75 times spread over three decades, despite not having any formal music training. The NYT paints him as a talentless impostor that musicians hated working for, who lived out his spoiled rich guy dreams by having the right friends in the right places.
On the other hand, a BBC report from the 80's depicts Kaplan in a completely different light. Here, he comes off as a patron of the arts who spent a small fortune to buy Mahler's original score, learn it by heart, and become a world leading authority on the symphony. He later published the score, and seeing it as a near historical document, supported further scholarship on the subject. Before his first time picking up a baton in front of an audience, he trained with a professional conductor for eight hours a day for months at a time. His route to becoming a conductor was anything but typical, but nobody could say he hadn't put in some time to learn the craft and pay some dues.
One could chalk up the BBC report to "LOL 80's" -- what characterizes the Me Decade more than showing sympathy on TV to rich yuppies? It still isn't clear exactly how Kaplan broke into the conducting business. Nobody will seem to admit that money/donations were the main factor, but it's hard to imagine that they weren't. A guy who already has everything buys himself an orchestra for a night to fulfill a dream? That could get play only in the 80's. So yes, without the connections afforded to rich New Yorkers, none of this happens.
Some rich guys consider owning a sports team as a vanity project and couldn't care less about winning. Kaplan wasn't that kind of person. Conducting Mahler truly was his dream and he approached it seriously and with the best of intentions. As a conductor, he was enthusiastic and probably quite a bit ego-driven. Most conductors are. He didn't have the charisma or technique to do the job well, but he could do it competently. Whatever innate talent he lacked was partially compensated by his mastery of the score and his absolute sense of purpose as a conductor -- he never conducted any other piece, nor did he have any interest in doing so. His conducting was mathematical and had no real interpretive vision. His performances could never touch that of a professional conductor who can speak the orchestra's language and use them to translate the sounds in his head to the stage.
Outsider Music and Outsider musicians have always populated the fringes of pop music. Usually they're disadvantaged people without the financial means to compete with well funded mainstream artists. That wouldn't describe Kaplan. And yet there's no denying that it's a remarkable story. Kaplan conducted world famous orchestras all over the world. It's impossible to imagine this happening today. Ironically, cronyism in classical music isn't like it was a generation ago. Orchestras are more of a meritocracy than ever before. The best people, male or female, stand a good chance of being hired via a rigorous process. It's not about knowing someone who knows the conductor. How many contemporary pop music stars got their start by posting videos to Youtube? Where are the classical Youtube stars? Fluke conducting careers like Kaplan's are impossible to envision these days. Maybe that makes classical music a bit less interesting. That made the NYT's cynicism a bit disappointing, even if it was totally predictable.
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