Ironically, I find some of his reviews hit the nail quite squarely on the head; for instance, his love of Neumann's Dvorak, his bewilderment at the love for Rattle, but then he goes on these pointless rants about Furtwangler, where he sounds as ignorants as the goons the US sent to investigate Furtwangler's so-called Nazi associations. In the meantime, of course, the two conductors who signed up to be Nazis, Bohm and Karajan were allowed to have a jolly time of it.
Ford, I'm afraid viewing, then soon abandoning in frustration and irritation, some of those YouTube postings confirmed my opinion of him as relentlessly perverse and self-aggrandising. He is obsessed by timpani and very fond of airing the same, repetitive prejudices and predilections while dismissing some lovely music and artists, thereby attempting to disguise huge gaps in his knowledge -especially, as I said before, with regard to vocal and operatic music. It's all "me, me me" and his responses to Wagner and Bruckner and his characterisation of those us devoted to their music are deeply insulting and ignorant. I appreciate that none of us is free from some of those tendencies but I find his attempts at humour embarrassing and often a kind of double-bluff, whereby he pretends to be joking but only to cover some really absurd judgements - and my goodness, that voice and his attempts to sing are so grating...
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