Furthermore, if you listen to Rach's only piano playing, you hear that he was anything but a 'hyterical' pianist. He certainly didn't pound the keyboard. His playing was fleet and elegant.
D.H. and I are friends, so I don't want to delve into this too deeply in a public forum. But I think he gives only a short rope to today's conductors. And once somebody is on his poop list, it takes almost a miracle for them to get off that list. It started with Rattle, whom I'm also not always so crazy about. In this regard, D.H. isn't terribly different than Norman Lebrecht or a number of other people. N-S. may not be the most perfect conductor in the world. But in regards to Philadelphia, he's clearly the right person at the right time. He's the best they've had since Muti in his early years. Sawallisch was a great musician, but not terribly inspiring in his Philadelphia years. Eschenbach could be really strange, somewhat like Maazel. In some respects, I think N-S. is even superior to Ormandy (but not in all respects). They could have done much, much worse.
