“I reckon his tenure was at least 80 percent successful, though in a recent interview with the Times he seemed dissatisfied. “To a degree I lost my stomach to fight for things,” he said, “because I thought we were doing good work generally, and musically things were going in the direction I wanted them to.” That startlingly candid statement suggests that, in Gilbert’s mind at least, the Philharmonic registered his prodding not as an incitement to inventiveness but as a form of artistic nagging. It balked at too much reinvention.”