I'm not going to attempt explanation or comment, just give you the link to Hurwitz' latest offering (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVWutwds2ho) - comparing, would you believe, Massenet and Bruckner! Very funny in places, on the face of it absurd, but maybe there's a ring of truth to some of it?
It's too late to watch the video now but to say "few composers today are held in lower repute than Jules Massenet" seems odd. His star has risen enormously in recent years with nearly all his operas now recorded. I do remember, though, when I was a music student in the late 1970s, mentioning that I was a Massenet fan and the professor going to the piano and, with a sneer, playing the "Meditation". Many years later, I like to think I had the last laugh.
It seems odd to compare Bruckner and Massenet but didn't Jacques-Dalcroze study with Delibes and Bruckner?!