“What is it that makes people who have earned some success or social status imagine that they have the gift to command musical attention? Why, for instance, does the present chairman of English National Opera, Martin Smith, conduct the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (which he once financed), albeit in private performances? Why did the former chairman of Sony, Norio Ohga, demand to conduct top US and European orchestras, albeit in exchange for a million-dollar donation? Are these men so deficient in reality sensors that they fail to consider what orchestral musicians who work with real maestros must make of their pathetic presumption?”