‘Mad About Music’ Celebrates Five Years on the Air

What do Jimmy Carter, Tom Brokaw, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have in common? A love of classical music. This Sunday, a special two-hour broadcast of “Mad About Music” from 8–10 p.m. on WNYC (93.9 FM) will focus on the power of classical music in people’s lives. Host Gilbert Kaplan, the founder of Institutional Investor magazine, has selected some of the most memorable moments from five years and nearly 40 shows featuring guests such as Alec Baldwin, Peter Jennings, Philippe de Montebello, and Lorin Maazel.The listener will learn about Sony chief executive Howard Stringer’s difficulty in playing a trumpet solo in a school production of Handel’s “The Messiah,” and British actor Patrick Stewart hearing Elgar’s “Second Symphony” minutes before learning of the World Trade Center attacks.Mr. Kaplan’s show, which features biographical anecdotes interspersed with music, takes the listener behind the scenes and into decision makers’ lives. For example, one hears how a former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, enjoyed Chopin’s “Military Polonaise” while waiting to meet Yasir Arafat for the first time.In another episode that was taped before President Bush and Russian President Putin had their first meeting, Mr. Kaplan asked Ms. Rice to select music that could be a soundtrack for that diplomatic encounter. She replied that “Getting to Know You” came to mind.The director of “The French Connection” and “The Exorcist,” William Friedkin, recalled being so absorbed by Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” while driving that he pulled his car over. As a teenager, Alan Dershowitz passed as a music student by carrying a musical score to get into the Metropolitan Opera for just 50 cents. The famed law professor parses the case this way: “They didn’t ask me if I was a music student, they just said, ‘Do you have a score?’ I had a score.”Mr. Kaplan told The New York Sun that there appears to be a dearth of chief executives of major corporations who love classical music, but a lot of lawyers and judges do. On the show, the listener learns of the time Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg entered an elevator and met Maria Callas in a white mink.Tabulating his musical guests’ tastes, Mr. Kaplan found that Bach was most popular, followed by Beethoven, Mozart, Mahler, and Puccini. As far as individual pieces go, Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” topped the list, followed by the “Visse d’arte” in Puccini’s “Tosca.”Amusing moments include how a Los Angeles psychic told designer Isaac Mizrahi that he had had a very famous piano teacher. “Mozart taught you how to play,” Mr. Mizrahi recalled the psychic telling him. “If anyone asks you, you tell them that you were a lady in that time, that he taught her to play the piano. He was in love with you.”One of the inspirations for the show, Mr. Kaplan said, is that he was a guest himself on a similar show in London called “Private Passions.” He is currently in Russia, where he is about to conduct Mahler’s Second Symphony with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. At around age 40, he decided he wanted to conduct that one piece of music, and has subsequently led more than 50 orchestras around the world, including the Vienna Philharmonic and the London Symphony. Of his passion for Mahler’s work, he said, “This music just wrapped its arms around me. It’s as simple as that.”“I require music,” he added. “For me, it’s not something nice: It’s necessary.”

‘Mad About Music’ Celebrates Five Years on the Air

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