He’s cultivated and urbane. David Zinman coasts along feeling no undercurrents within No 5. For him, Schubert remains the teenager of smiling cherubic countenance. The booklet describes the opening movement as a ‘graceful Allegro’ and the first subject certainly begins that way. But the mood changes as terse, biting sforzandos drive the music towards the second subject, where the mood changes again. Zinman moderates the contrasts, and also blends the strings and wind in the slow movement. Michi Gaigg is meticulously attentive to their distinctive timbres within the balance, as she is to the unexpected presence of more sforzandos, particularly from horns that rough up this ‘bewitchingly beautiful Andante’. Gaigg detects Schubert’s emotional state; Zinman is unperturbed.

Ostensibly, though, he is more committed in the opening Adagio of No 6 but reverts to nonchalance in the following Allegro, the letter always observed but obligations to creative conducting set aside. Zinman lets the notes spin off the pages and the Zurich Tonhalle’s immensely skilful spinning seems no more than an instinctive reaction to uninspired direction. Lines aren’t clarified, layers aren’t shaded for variety; and the finale acquires a mood of perpetual motion, too fast for Allegro moderato as well. Listen to Frans Brüggen to hear the difference between patter and drama, the text energised through expressive articulation that reveals the depth and inner vitality of the music. He accepts responsibility for a personal interpretation of Schubert and fine-tunes listeners’ perceptions, perhaps even those of his musicians. Zinman does neither.