Who cares how old he is?

The fact that Alan Gilbert, who was just appointed the new music director of the NY Philharmonic, will be 42 when he takes the post, is frankly immaterial. Alex Ross shows us that this is certainly not unique in the annals of the NY Phil.

I don't honestly think that his relative youth will be of much use in attracting younger audiences. I'm not really sure why anyone would think that. Living in the community that I do, I've seen plenty of seventy year-olds whose energy puts mine to shame and the "vitality" that he would bring to his job, has little to do with his age.

The things that matter are the quality and innovation of his programming and above all the level of his music making and that which he draws from the orchestra. The one thing that I think differentiates him from his immediate predecessors is that he will have something to prove and won't have any opportunity to settle for complacency. I think it will also help that Muti will spend more time with the orchestra, providing a bit of a bar by which to measure Gilbert (I disagree vehemently with some of Muti's thoughts on 19th century operatic performance practice, but the NY Philharmonic performances I've heard under him were mostly revelatory).

The reviews that I've read have been almost uniformly positive, but I suspect it will take a few years to get the measure of the man and his talent. I can only wish him and the orchestra luck.