MAD ABOUT MAHLER

By MICHAEL WALSH/SALZBURG

It's easy to dismiss Gilbert Kaplan as just another rich New Yorker with a hobby he can afford. Kaplan, 55, former publisher of Institutional Investor magazine, is mad for Mahler. Through his private Kaplan Foundation, formed a decade ago, he has immersed himself in the composer's life and music, tracking down every extant photograph of Mahler for a book and issuing a facsimile of Mahler's score of the Symphony No. 2, better known as the "Resurrection" Symphony--which just happens to be the object of Kaplan's special passion.

For Kaplan's Mahler fixation extends to actually stepping up on a podium and conducting the Second Symphony. Since his debut at Manhattan's Lincoln Center 14 years ago with the American Symphony Orchestra, rented for the occasion, he has led the lone, magnificent work in his repertoire nearly 50 times, with 31 different orchestras.

Two weeks ago, Kaplan gave his most significant performance yet. He led the London Philharmonia Orchestra through his signature piece on the opening night of the prestigious, snooty Salzburg Festival, not far from one of the Alpine lakes where Mahler composed the sprawling, five-movement work a century ago. Predictably, some critics did dismiss the event forthwith. "A multimillionaire's cold flirt," complained one; "no trace of Viennese charm," groused another. Austrians have long been loath to admit that anyone other than themselves can properly perform the Austro-German classics, and few would care to admit to an American's mastery.

Never mind that Kaplan's invitation had come directly from Hans Landesmann, who oversees the festival's symphonic programming. Never mind that BMG's Conifer Classics will issue a September release in the U.S. of The Kaplan Mahler Edition, a double CD that includes Kaplan's best-selling recording of the Resurrection Symphony; the Mahler Piano Rolls; and recollections of Mahler by his contemporaries, as well as a CD-ROM component that features photos from Kaplan's book The Mahler Album.

And never mind the 10-minute standing ovation--nearly unheard of from a Salzburg audience--that followed the stirring, soaring strains of the closing choral ode. The truth is, the evening was a triumph for Kaplan, whose infatuation with the Second Symphony dates to a chance encounter with the music in 1965. As a young economist working on the American Stock Exchange, he attended a performance led by Leopold Stokowski. "I felt like a bolt of lightning had gone through me," he recalls. "The music just seemed to wrap its arms around me and never let go."

It took 15 years, however, for Mahler to grow into an obsession. In the meantime, Kaplan had founded the investment magazine that made his fortune, and thus had the financial underpinning for what seemed an impossible leap: from Mahler fan to Mahler interpreter. "At age 40, I woke up one morning and knew in my mind that I was going to conduct this piece," says Kaplan.

He telephoned the dean of the Juilliard School for advice and soon was taking lessons from Charles Bornstein, a recent graduate. At his summer house on Long Island, New York, Kaplan and Bornstein worked for a month, nine hours a day, on the first movement alone. Kaplan then booked the American Symphony for a private rehearsal. The results were good, so Kaplan kept at it, conducting the piece in public for the first time in 1982.

Musicians are not CDs; they await cues, tempos, phrasing instructions and a host of interpretative intangibles from the guy who's waving a baton at them. If Kaplan at Salzburg did not bring to mind a slick stick like Riccardo Muti or Valery Gergiev, his intense, attentive manner in front of the Philharmonia, the Vienna State Opera Chorus, mezzo-soprano Doris Soffel and soprano Rosa Mannion bespoke a firm grasp. Mahler's heaven-storming climaxes shook the Grossesfestspielhaus to its granite foundations, and anyone who did not feel a chill at the tremendous peroration must either have been dead or Austrian.

Although Kaplan is much in demand--he has made 10 appearances in the past year--he harbors no illusions about making conducting a second career. He donates his fees to charity and turns down invitations to lead other Mahler works, most recently a Das Lied von der Erde in Vienna. "I don't regard myself as a conductor," he says. "The driving force with me was always the music." In this day of bored, globe-trotting professionals, those are sentiments to be resurrected.