The self-explanatory title of the Santa Barbara Symphony’s May concerts is Platinum Sounds: The Santa Barbara Symphony Turns 70.

In the 40 years I have been listening to this marvelous orchestra, I have never failed to be charmed and/or exalted by the music they make.

A city that still has a population of less than 100,000 has continuously maintained an orchestra that outperforms the ensembles maintained by any other similarly sized towns in the United States, not to mention many of the flagship ensembles of far bigger municipalities.

Under the last three music directors — Varujan Kojian, Gisele Ben-Dor, Nir Kabaretti — the Santa Barbara Symphony has evolved into a passionate, yet utterly professional, world class instrument that has consistently made itself a part of the larger arts community and an integral part of town life.

Platinum Sounds will play at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 13, and 3 p.m. Sunday, May 14, both in the Granada Theater (with a pre-concert Conversations with Kabaretti at 2 p.m. Sunday).

The program will consist of Jonathan Leshnoff’s “Concerto Grosso” (previously commissioned for the symphony’s 60th anniversary); Felix Mendelsson-Bartholdy’s “Violin Concerto No. 2 in e-minor, Opus 64” (1844); and Johannes Brahms‘ “Symphony No.1 in c-minor, Opus 68” (1876).

The violin soloist in the Mendelssohn will be multi-GRAMMY nominee Philippe Quint , a favorite of local audiences from his previous appearances here. Quint plays the 1708 “Ruby” Stradivarius violin on loan to him through the generous efforts of The Stradivari Society.

The smaller ensemble of Leshnoff’s “Concerto Grosso” will be made up of the symphony’s virtuoso principals: Jessica Guideri and Ryo Usami, violins: Trevor Handy, cello; Amy Tatum, flute; Lara Wickes, oboe; Donald Foster, clarinet; Andy Radford, bassoon; Teag Reaves, horn; Jon Lewis, trumpet; and Dillon MacIntyre, trombone.

From the symphony’s program notes, we learn that: “Jonathan Leshnoff (b.1973) was commissioned by the Santa Barbara Symphony in 2012 to create a four-movement work modeled on the Baroque Concerto Grosso form. Nir Kabaretti conducted the world premiere performances of ‘Concerto Grosso’ in Santa Barbara on March 16-17, 2013.

“The first movement features two solo violins, as is common in many Baroque concertos. The second movement gives soloists on cello, trumpet, horn, and trombone the opportunity to display their virtuosity. The third movement features the principal players of the woodwind section, and the final movement brings together all the soloists.

Leshnoff’s ‘Concerto Grosso’ is both a contemporary work of lush romantic sensibility, and an homage, if loosely so, to Baroque form. Leshnoff is the real thing: classic, romantic, and modern at the same time, his high-energy music is nevertheless always accessible.”

“The only thing about Mendelssohn’s immortal e-minor violin concerto that might be a problem for audiences is the designation ‘#2.”‘This was not necessary until the middle of the twentieth century, when the celebrated violinist, Yehudi Menuhin, discovered a ‘Violin Concerto in d-minor,’ indisputably by Mendelssohn, composed when he was 13.”

Although one annotator claims the d-minor work “has remained popular with audiences the world over since its rediscovery,” I have, in several decades of concert-going and vinyl collecting, never encountered it. And even today, the e-minor concerto frequently appears on programs, like the symphony’s, without the ordinal number, or even the key signature, but simply as the “Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.”

When audiences are invited to express their druthers with regard to the music they would most like to hear, the e-minor concerto invariably lands in the top three choices.

“I’m looking forward to revisiting Brahms Symphony No. 1, one of the greatest symphonic masterpieces of the Austro-German tradition,” said Maestro Nir Kabaretti.

The famous Viennese music critic, Eduard Hanslick (1825-1904) adored Brahms and liked to use him as a stick to beat Wagnerians, but he did Brahms — and us — no favor when he dubbed Brahms’s First Symphony “Beethoven’s Tenth.”

We poor music lovers were now forced to appreciate one composer as a direct successor to another. But there is almost nothing in Brahms’s four symphonies that can be traced directly — by laymen — to the nine symphonies of Beethoven.

Indeed, bits and pieces of the four symphonies of Brahms’s friend and mentor, Robert Schumann (1810-56) are much more in evidence than those of Beethoven.

Dealing with the Beethoven/Brahms issue, the indispensable Robert Craft made a valuable distinction: “Beethoven is primarily an instrumental composer, even when writing for voices, Brahms a vocal one, even when writing for instruments.”

This brilliant and incisive distillation, unarguable on a technical level (I spoke with the late Robert Craft on several occasions, but I would never dare to argue with him), is mainly useful to us groundlings for assessing the character of the melodies of the two composers, rather than the structure of their music.

With regard to Beethoven the whole force of the man wins us over, rather than any particular aspect to his music; with Brahms, those of us in the cheap seats love him for his melodies alone. They are melodies to sing, not to develop. Fortunately for us, Brahms’s reservoir of beautiful tunes was inexhaustible.

The sublime, flowing river of a tune that ushers us into the last movement of the First Symphony is subject by the composer to some rather pedestrian developments, but their only effect is to make us long impatiently for its return.

Platinum Sounds is generously supported by Principal Concert Sponsor Montecito Bank & Trust; Artist Sponsor Christine A. Green; and Selection Sponsor Judd and Susan Lundt, Stefan and Christine Riesenfeld, and Anne Smith Towbes.

Tickets for Platinum Sounds are $35-$175 and can be purchased in person at the Granada Ticket office, 1214 State St., by phone, 805-899-2222, or online at https://ticketing.granadasb.org/16753.

For more about this concert, or the Santa Barbara Symphony, visit www.thesymphony.org.

— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributor.