Neil Young in "Neil Young Heart of Gold"

When The Who sang “Hope I die before I get old” back in 1966, it resonated with a generation that couldn’t conceive of their music, to them so new, being performed by anyone over the age of 30.

Fortunately now that baby boomers are aging they’ve allowed their idols to grow up with them. It might be an embarrassment for Mick and Keith to still be rolling through the sports arenas of the world. But for musicians like Neil Young, who turned 60 in November, age is nothing but a blessing, deepening the pool of experience that he has always drawn on.

The man who once sang “It’s better to burn out/Than it is to rust” shows that he is doing neither in Neil Young: Heart of Gold, a concert film of exquisite grace and heartstopping beauty.

Filmed on August 18 and 19 last year at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium (former home of the Grand Old Opry), the film presents live performances of songs from Young’s then-unreleased album Prairie Wind. The album was written and recorded in a burst of energy after Young, having just lost his father, learned that he had a potentially fatal brain aneurysm.

Fortunately surgery fixed Young up, and the reflective mood made for some magnificent music. The concert features a large cast of musicians, most of whom have worked with Young over the years, including steel guitarist Ben Keith, keyboardist Spooner Oldham, and singer Emmylou Harris (the world’s best argument against hair dye).

There is also a string section, horns and a gospel chorus, but the arrangements don’t try to cram every player into every song. All are used sparingly and none are ever wasted, so that we never become accustomed to them. The performance incorporates many of the influences that Young has explored over the years, with the exclusion of his electric side: those who prefer the bull goose skronk of his work with Crazy Horse will have to settle for Jim Jarmusch’s documentary Year of the Horse.

The songs, for those of you who like me haven’t heard them before, are concerned with memory and the place of a single life in a larger context. But the closest they get to maudlin is “He Was the King,” a gentle remembrance of a dog. Otherwise Young sings of lessons learned with neither resignation nor regret, but as keys to life that arrive better late than never. The most moving moment comes in “This Old Guitar,” about the vintage guitar Young plays that once belonged to Hank Williams. As he sings “This old guitar ain’t mine to keep/It’s mine to play for awhile,” the song reflects an awareness of spirituality that sent a shiver down my spine (not for the first time in the film, either).

The new songs are so good, and so pristinely presented, that I was frankly sorry when they ended and Young launched into a set of oldies, mostly from the albums Harvest and Harvest Moon.

Though it can’t be denied that Young, after 40 years of performing, has a huge and worthwhile back catalogue to explore, the high point of this section comes when everyone onstage whose hands aren’t otherwise occupied straps on a guitar for Ian Tyson’s “Four Strong Winds,” which Young aptly describes as “the most beautiful song I have ever heard in my life.”

Heart of Gold was filmed by Jonathan Demme, who defined the concert film in 1984 with the Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense. Working in Super 16mm that imparts a pleasing touch of grain to the image (digital video is far too unforgiving for weathered faces), he keeps your attention focused on the music in a manner that is precisely the opposite of the “Saturday Night Live” school of swooping cameras and machine-gun editing. It reminded me of his video for New Order’s “Perfect Kiss:” his work never draws attention to itself, never takes you outside of the music, though if you make the effort to pay attention to it you can see how hard he’s working to capture just the right shot at every given moment.

Heart of Gold is a movie with a limited audience; it will only be enjoyed by people who love music.