One April Saturday in 1965, an economist at the American Stock Exchange was taken by a friend to an orchestral rehearsal(管弦乐队排演). He watched impassively as Leopold stop-startedly conducted Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 all afternoon. The economist thought little of it until later that night, when, sleeplessly, he tossed and turned, haunted by the music he had heard. Next morning he bought a ticket and at the concert "just found myself sobbing, absolutely excited".
The young man was about to launch a publishing business and, with it, to define an occupation. With $100,000 borrowed from Gerald Bronfman, a whisky giant, and $50,000 from banks, friends and his own savings, Gilbert Kaplan, 24 years old, founded Institutional Investor, a monthly magazine that brought together bankers, ysts and money managers. It quickly became an essential means of communication for financiers, attracting 150,000 subscribers in 140 countries. Before the 1960s were over Mr. Kaplan was a millionaire and on first-name terms with finance ministers and international banker.
But Mahler’s symphony would not let him rest. Over the next few years he attended every performance within reach, met his future wife in the adjacent seat at London’s Royal Festival Hall and, as the obsession intensified, took 18 months off work to study the score and discuss it with such leading interpreters. In September 1982, after an International Monetary Fund summit, he put his reputation on the line by conducting the American Symphony Orchestra in a private performance for financiers and politicians at the Lincoln Centre.
Mahler’s second symphony, known as the "Resurrection (复苏)" for its exciting choral climax and theological theme, is one of the trickiest works in the performing field, a 90-minute epic involving a huge orchestra, chorus, two soloists and an invisible offstage group that seldom come in on cue.
Discussing the purpose of life on earth, its clumsiness regularly defeats the best efforts of famous s. For a rank to accomplish a performance without breaking down was equal to a musical revolution. Privately Mr. Kaplan now admits that if the musicians had failed to respond to his beat or the music fell apart (as it sometimes does in the best of hands), his fallback plan was to turn around to the audience and announce:" Ladies and gentlemen, dinner is served. \
What can we learn about Gilbert Kaplan and his business