He is the flip side to Esa-Pekka Salonen, the former conductor of the LA Philharmonic, sold on posters throughout all the trendy neighborhoods more on the basis of his boyish charms than on his music-making abilities. Salonen used to make his point in favor of avant-garde music by conducting Brahms and Beethoven as though they bored him.

Read here, this makes me wonder if the conductor to whom the writer, Lionel Rolfe, is referring knew that this was going to be written about Salonen. I can’t imagine a conductor would want to have another (somewhat more famous) conductor bashed. Doesn’t seem wise to me.