He did seem to have quite a polarizing way with music. I bought his 67 cd "complete Columbia recordings" set last year and have very much enjoyed them. I don't think too many of his recordings are the best I've heard of anything, but he did have a marvelous way of revealing the inner workings of the score in ways other conductors didn't. He was a master at managing his own professional reputation as a conductor. His output as a composer always struck me more as intellectual exercises than anything that I could really love and want to come back to many times.
