Let us consider ovations. Applause is the usual sign of appreciation for a performance. For a very good performance, we stand while applauding. Musicians, their hands being frequently otherwise engaged, will applaud a particularly fine bit by their fellows with a shuffling of the feet. Europeans, in token of superior performances, will coalesce into unison applause.

Nashville audiences need their own ovation to acknowledge the extraordinary. Standing ovations seem to have become our way of recognizing that an artist not from here has managed to conclude a performance with a minimum of train wrecks. Whistling, long a favorite at sporting events and rock concerts, is an impolite expression at serious music concerts because it is a sign of great opprobrium in so many parts of the world.

May I, then, suggest the “rebel yell”? It is particularly Southern, it is frequently indulged in during moments of great emotion, and it makes a great and unforgettable impact. So “New South” am I that my own rebel yell is wanting. Perhaps some member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans will endeavor to undertake my instruction. That instruction will, alas, come too late to show the proper appreciation for the Nashville Symphony’s last concert pair. These two nights of music making were a wonderful summation of and tribute to all the work that has made the Nashville Symphony one of the jewels of this community’s cultural life for the last 50 years.

Charles Ives and William Schumann deserved a yell for the great fun of Ives’ “Variations on America,” and the symphony deserves an even greater one for its performance. If critics frequently mention orchestral balance, it is often because the brasses overpower the strings, or the woodwinds are playing too softly to be heard by anyone not possessing a hearing apparatus designed for use by the CIA. What great balances this performance had—and from the very start. The horns had a hoot with their “wrong note” passages, the woodwinds played with especial perkiness, the trumpet and trombone blend was first-rate, the strings played with particular zest, and the percussion lent uncommon color. A good time seemed to have been had by all, particularly the audience.

Robert Schumann’s piano concerto, written for the use of his wife Clara, is not one of the big flashy romantic scores. Closer in temperament to works by Chopin and Mendelssohn, it requires a soloist of taste and restraint who must also have the technical ability to play a great many notes at great velocities. Guest pianist John Kimura Parker certainly demonstrated technique and tasteful restraint, but he also displayed an uncommon feel for ensemble playing throughout his performance. The great care with which he shaped each note and with which he phrased his interpretation was more than matched by the attention to detail shown by the symphony members.

This is very much a work for piano with orchestra, and the precision with which Parker doubled instrumental parts was noteworthy. There is a passage in the first movement, right after particularly fine sighing phrases, in which the piano plays with the strings. The bass notes of the piano and the strings created a unitary sound here and were a perfect foil to the masses of arpeggios that Parker had to execute next. Parker treated the cadenza in the first movement as an expanded fantasia. He gave the tempi a splendid flow but didn’t allow things to become choppy.

The feeling of fantasia continued into the etude-like second movement. This is plain music, and the ideas are repeated many times; thus, it is up to the performers to make it flow, which they did. The transitional passages to the finale were splendidly handled, and Parker and the orchestra members fairly skipped through the finale. Some may have found Parker’s solo bits too detached or choppy here, but I found them the perfect counterpoise to his rumbling arpeggios and quicksilver passage work. He could have played with a bit more pedal, but the drier sound showed off his fantastic dexterity and left the wildly applauding audience to wonder how he got all those notes in. Parker deserved a rebel yell.

Following the ovation for the Schumann, Parker further inflamed Saturday night’s audience with an encore of Chick Corea’s “Got a Match?” I don’t believe that I have even heard Murray Perahia play with such speed and accuracy. The performance was a fascinating kaleidoscope of changing colors and meters for the keyboard done in lightning bebop style. In fact, the only pianist, live or recorded, that I’ve heard play like this was Art Tatum, and my spies tell me that the encore on Friday night was a Tatum piece. When Parker’s solo jazz album comes out, buy it. Stephen Vann, invite this man back!

It’s a shame that so many people left at intermission, because, as good as the Schumann was, it was by no means the highlight of the evening. That came with the NSO’s performance of The Planets, Gustav Holst’s suite for large orchestra. It was one of the very best performances of this piece I have ever encountered in a concert hall or on recordings; it had a power, balance, finesse and attention to detail that reduced its few small flaws to insignificance.

As both a person and composer, Holst was fascinated by alternative religious experience and the occult. His interest in what might be called the language of astrology is what led him to compose The Planets. Each of the movements in the work was intended by Holst to convey something of the astrological character of that planet. Thus, “Mars” is a study in war, “Mercury” is filled with light, quicksilver music appropriate to the winged messenger, “Saturn” is a character study in the relentless tread of time, and “Neptune” is an utterly unworldly portrait of the mystical state. With its music of great variety and orchestral color, The Planets gives not only sections but individual instrumentalists many chances at cameo performances.

I don’t have the space to commend the individual performers, but there were some superbly handled effects that deserve mention. At the beginning of “Mars,” the col legno effects—when the strings tap out notes with the wood of the bow—were perfectly balanced by menacing legato passages in the brass and clusters of premonitory sound by the woodwinds. The movement built and slackened, then built again to a terrible edifice of sound. The final crashing chords were draining.

The symphony encountered the most difficulties in “Venus, the Bringer of Peace.” The opening legato horn passages were well done, and the woodwind work, string work and string solos were all very well done. But there was a problem with the flow of the movement—the episodic quality seemed more static than peaceful.

“Jupiter,” one of the work’s most enduringly popular movements, struck just the right balance of bluff jocularity and sober rejoicing. In the climaxes, the brass had a big soaring quality that did not overpower the other instrumental groups. The strings revealed a particularly fine sheen that, for this record collector, brought back memories of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Ormandy.

“Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age” is said to have been Holst’s own favorite of these movements, and the care with which he built up his music is evident. To a tocsin from the chimes, the music grows like the long, slow tread of time and experience. The swirling and dizzying passage that follows this break leads off into a passage of beauty and tranquillity—the wisdom that comes with suffering and experience. This sounds simple in the telling, but listen to any three recordings of this movement, and you can hear how often the lack of balances and inattention to orchestral detail make a hash of it all. The climactic chime passage is a particular reef on which many performances have foundered. Chimes and strings should reply to each other in a kind of tolling figure, but they seldom do. They did here, and particular praise must go to the percussion battery and the lower strings for their work.

If there is an NEA next year and if the symphony does its annual submission for funds, its performance of “Uranus, the Magician” should go on the tape. It is a particularly tricky piece, with endless syncopations and changes of meter that leave the listener, like the viewer of a magic show, wondering what is up the artist’s sleeve. A movement of attacks and cutoffs, “Uranus” features small solo passages of fiendish difficulty; but these, along with the big building of orchestral effects, went off without any hitches. It was absolutely some of the finest, most concentrated playing I have heard from this or any other orchestra. It was superb. It deserved a rebel yell.

The finale, “Neptune, the Mystic,” was mesmerizing and otherworldly and, in its own way, dazzling. The harps and the cellos, along with the hollow-sounding woodwinds, created a perfect lead-in to the chorus of wordless women’s voices. Someone had the inspired idea of bringing down the lights as the music drifted off into unreality. It was a splendid that was, alas, robbed of much of its impact by the insistent peeps and chirps of digital watches all around the hall.

As a parting note, last Friday’s beautiful vesper service of choral music and prayers at Chist Church Episcopal in commemoration of World AIDS Day was a reminder that not all beautiful music is to be found at concerts. With the coming holiday season, much will be going on at local houses of worship. The Christmas services, festivals of lessons and carols, and other worship services are commended to your attention but cannot be considered for my commentary. They are offerings to God, and God is a much more discerning critic.