Kurt Masur, who was music director of the New York Philharmonic from 1991 to 2002, returned to conduct that orchestra last week. He presided over one subscription series and a special New Year’s Eve concert – a concert that revived an old Masur tradition (if the word “tradition” can be used loosely).

So, what has the maestro been doing with himself? His chief jobs are two: music director of the Orchestre National de France and principal conductor of the London Philharmonic. He does a lot of guesting, too, as he did in his old haunt, Avery Fisher Hall, last week.

His subscription program was all Russian, beginning with Rachmaninoff’s “symphonic poem” “The Isle of the Dead.” Frankly, Mr. Masur is the best “Isle of the Dead” conductor I know. He understands how the piece builds, and how to produce its hypnotic effect.

On Thursday night, he was characteristic: He didn’t try to add to the piece; he just (just!) drew it forth. This account was lugubrious and exciting at the same time, like the piece itself. Generally speaking, there was a churning underneath and some lyricism on top. And this account had a yearning and urgency one doesn’t often hear.

“The Isle of the Dead” is a very stringy piece, and the Philharmonic’s strings sounded magnificent. In various sections of the orchestra, entrances were less than perfect, but this detracted only slightly. Mr. Masur allows you to forget he’s there and enables you to listen to the music. Still, it was good to see him there: When he gets excited, he shuffles energetically from foot to foot – side to side – and you are caught up along with him.

After the Rachmaninoff, something unusual happened: The young Finnish pianist Olli Mustonen stepped onstage to play Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Why was this unusual? Because Mr. Mustonen might be called the anti-Masur; he is an extremely subjective, willful, eccentric musician. Oftentimes, he is downright bizarre. How did our maestro – legendary disciplinarian – get paired up with this chap?

This was a shabby Prokofiev Third. It began with a needlessly ugly clarinet; other prefatory notes from the orchestra were carefully placed, not flowing freely. When Mr. Mustonen came in, he slapped at the keyboard, effetely. He was wispy, insubstantial. Missing were Prokofiev’s stringency, bite, and muscularity. Mr. Mustonen’s accents were odd – as usual – and he is one of the great note-clippers in all of music. Moreover, his articulation was suspect (especially on trills and turns).

The middle movement was absurdly personal, not so much Prokofiev as Mustonen. (The young man is a composer, too – and, of course, what he does to his own music is his business.) In the last movement, that wispiness and slapping returned, the notes sounding like weak pings. This concerto is a first-class work, but you wouldn’t have known it from this pianist. To him, it was a rompy trifle.

Mr. Mustonen – who is a conductor, to boot – did some mock conducting during this performance, and he demonstrated just about every other gesture as well. His brow-moppings are Byronic, if that’s not too insulting to Byron. Liberace would have been embarrassed to behave this way.

But one can close one’s eyes, and the audience – which does not want to close its eyes – loves him. I might add that he did something (something else!) one does not see every day: He used the music, complete with page-turner. Of course, Myra Hess – among other pianists – did that, later in her life. Sadly, Mr. Mustonen is even less like Hess, musically, than he is like Mr. Masur.

After intermission, Mr. Masur conducted a familiar piece – Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” – but in an unfamiliar orchestration: that of Sergei Gorchakov. It is not unfamiliar to Mr. Masur, however, for he has championed it for years. He makes a good case for it, too: Mussorgsky-Gorchakov is raw, sinewy, Russian (at least according to a certain stereotype). As Mr. Masur conducted on Thursday night, one might – might – have been listening to Evgeny Mravinsky and the Leningrad Phil.

Mr. Masur began amazingly briskly, and, indeed, this whole “Pictures” would turn out to be one of the briskest imaginable. The conductor’s refusal to dawdle makes a world of difference. An old warhorse gains new legs.

Under this direction, “Pictures” was alive, arresting, edgy. Your attention couldn’t wander. Mr. Masur brings a German solidity to such a work, and scorns every frill. Back when he was music director, he was mocked by some for his “Scheherazade” (Rimsky-Korsakov). I rather liked his “Scheherazade,” and his Tchaikovsky, and his way with other Russian music. The romance is built in; you don’t need to add to it; in fact, when you do, you often subtract.

I might have liked the Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells a tad lighter and chirpier, and that Great Gate of Kiev could have been a little grander, more majestic – the conductor was perhaps over-brisk here. But this was a thrilling “Pictures,” a “Pictures” for someone who thinks he can’t bear to hear it again.

The Philharmonic at large played superbly, but I should single out someone in the back: If you’re going to perform this work, you could do worse than to have Philip Smith as your first trumpet.

***

In 1999, Mr. Masur programmed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on New Year’s Eve – the year 2000 and all. He kept it up, too, playing this work on that night. The Philharmonic’s current music director, Lorin Maazel, does other things, but Mr. Masur was back on December 31 with the Ninth. It is a fine tradition, for obvious reasons. I suppose I should say something about Beethoven’s Ninth, but I wish to confine myself to quoting Schumann, who was quoted in the Philharmonic’s program: It is “beyond praise.”

Mr. Masur began the work – guess how: briskly. He was also no-nonsense, balanced, and faithful. During his years as music director, how many times did we write those words – “brisk,” “nononsense,” “balanced,” “faithful”! It does not get old, this sort of musicianship. Gratifyingly, Mr. Masur does not try to be profound in a work like Beethoven’s Ninth (not that there is any other like it); he knows it is profound already.

The Philharmonic’s sound was unusually alive, almost primal, in this first movement; the contributions of the timpani made this especially so. And unison playing is very important in this music, an aspect that the Philharmonic’s strings, in particular, handled well. Mr. Masur’s dynamics fell within a fairly narrow range, but they were marked enough. Overall, one got the feeling that the performance would have been even better with one more rehearsal.

The second movement was acceptably tight, having that galloping tension that Beethoven wants. When Mr. Masur wants extra propulsion, he knows how to get it from an orchestra, and the Philharmonic responds. Still, contrasts among sections of the movement could have been more distinct, and much of it could have been lighter, more scherzo-like.

The next movement – the Adagio – is notoriously hard to shape. It is, indeed, one of the strangest movements that Beethoven ever penned. On Friday night, it began in unfortunately sickly fashion, and on the whole lacked for warmth, for bloom. It was almost cold. Furthermore, it was brisk to the point of seeming rushed. This Adagio, in addition to being strange, is very beautiful, but there was little beauty on this occasion. To add insult to injury, the movement’s ending was ragged.

And how about the miraculous fourth movement? Immediately, it was more subtle than the Adagio: It was by turns guttural, intricate, mystical. Mr. Masur unfolded the opening pages like the petals of an extraordinary flower, and he had the orchestra phrasing deftly. Too often, these pages – and others – turn to soup, but not under Mr. Masur.

Leading the quartet of solo singers was the German bass-baritone Alfred Dohmen, who gave us a vibrant, thrilling, sort of wet sound. He sang as though he had something important to say, which he did. I might note, too – as long as I’m noting these things – that he had no score in his hands, which was very, very unusual. The other three held scores, oratorio like. Mr. Dohmen looked almost operatic, with those bare hands.

The tenor, Thomas Studebaker, performed his part adequately, and Marietta Simpson, the mezzo, was satisfying as usual. Our soprano was Christine Brewer, who substituted for Adrianne Pieczonka. Ms. Brewer is a skilled and intelligent singer, as she has proven many times on New York stages. She handled her few but difficult and critical notes well, having no trouble with soft singing up top.

Joining the orchestra were the New York Choral Artists, who sang with great vitality (even if they were badly flat once, on the key word “Welt”). Mr. Masur had the chorus make Beethoven’s inquiries with real understanding. There is no artifice about this man, no cheap theatricality. (I’m talking about Mr. Masur, not Beethoven, but it applies either way.) In these hands, the symphony spoke truly, and it was musically compelling.

After several curtain calls, Mr. Masur led the orchestra, and the chorus, and the soloists, and the audience in “Auld Lang Syne.” I happened to be standing next to a veteran of the Metropolitan Opera; he did not sing; I did not – could not – either.

While the men were in the usual black, the women of the orchestra and chorus were dressed gaily – New Year’s Eve-ily. But this was not a gay occasion, not as the Philharmonic conceived it. At the beginning of the evening, we were informed that the performance was being “dedicated” to the victims of the tidal wave, and we were to think of them, along with our own blessings. People are always doing that: “dedicating” performances, and freighting works – or attempting to freight them – with particular significance. But people should be free to think their own thoughts, or no thoughts, as the music plays. This is one of the glories – and mysteries – of music.

Such opinions aside, the Philharmonic’s impulse was, of course, unimpeachable.

As is the conducting of Kurt Masur. In my view, he gets nothing but better, and, in fact, I consider him something of a late-bloomer: He did not, if I may, strike me as a great conductor during the 1970s and 1980s, as he led the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. But in his seventh and eighth decades, his greatness became apparent.

Which makes the insistence of many critics and others on younger conductors doubly discouraging. There is much to be said for gray or white hair on the podium. Who would have wanted to miss out on the ripeness of Kurt Masur’s career? Who would want to miss out on the ripeness of Lorin Maazel’s? (Many, is the answer.)

Before he departed New York, I wrote a piece on Mr. Masur entitled “Mere Excellence.” That’s what he offers – not youth or “hipness,” only excellence, which, by golly, is good enough, and pretty rare, too.