Taking Bringuier as brand leader, the new-model MD will not need to know Beethoven and Brahms by heart. He must, rather, reinvent the reasons for performing them and discover contexts, in and outside the concert hall, that reflect contemporary lifestyles. He will not stay to press flesh at sponsors’ receptions. Instead, he will dash to an all-night club to engage with his own age group. He will not exert total control over programming, narrowing his gaze to the priorities he can bring and the talent he can attract to shift the image of classical music from then to now, before it’s too late. That, in a nutshell, is the Zurich gambit.

Others have already set a new generation in motion. Birmingham, Liverpool and Bournemouth all appointed music directors in their twenties—Andris Nelsons, Vasily Petrenko and Kirill Karabits—each to tremendous effect. Glyndebourne’s incoming chief, Robin Ticciati, is 29. Indianapolis has a dazzling Pole, Krzysztof Urbanski, also 29.

The Halle’s assistant conductor, Jamie Phillips, is just 20. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra has Jessica Cottis, 31. Three young Venezuelans command orchestras in northern Europe; there may be more whom I have overlooked.

What is going on is more than just generational change. It involves a profound perceptual change of what musicians and audiences may expect of a music director, and what a music director may hope to achieve. Those aspirations are, inevitably, inhibited by the shadow of past titans. The winner of the first Carlos Kleiber prize, a gifted Greek called Constantinos Carydis, responded to the overwhelming burden of expectation associated with the most perfect conductor of all time by cancelling all engagements for a year and taking an unscheduled sabbatical.