People Who Do Not Like Wagner

(1) John Eliot Gardiner said the following to the Gramophone:

"I really loathe Wagner—everything he stands for—and I don't even like his music very much." Pressed on why, and why he won't perform it: "It's like you have a palate that you've developed over the years to distinguish between the best Burgundy and Côtes-du-Rhône—then you're suddenly given this appalling Spätlese that's actually got a fair dose of paraffin in it as well, and sheep drench—I think your palate would be ruined. That's my fear."

(2) Arthur Szyk, Jewish caricaturist of the fascist era, drew this deafeningly furious picture of Wagner as proto-Nazi (click to enlarge, slightly), and it makes Gardiner sound like Herbert von Karajan. Read more about Szyk in this Times review.