It was a surrealistic night. Every so often a trip to the symphony is like that. It had oddities—both nice and annoying. First-off, I thought, ninety seems to be the new seventy. And seventy surely is the new fifty. As Herbert Blomstedt came onstage, he didn't look eighty-nine, that's for certain! Just slightly snowier than last time. Tall, eager, ambassadorial as ever—Blomstedt led the evening without baton and the symphony from memory—an incredible feat with this edition.