. . . And at the Music Center

One of the most cherishable memories in one Brahmsian’s chest is of a performance, heard in Pasadena in September, 1982, of the Second Symphony.

The orchestra was the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, the conductor, Bernard Haitink, the reading definitive and exquisite.

Brahms of another sort emerged in the performance of the Fourth Symphony given by Riccardo Chailly and the same orchestra, Saturday night in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center. It revealed, again, the burnished sound and abundant musical resources of the exemplary Dutch orchestra, but this time without a breathtaking perspective from the podium.

Make no mistake: Chailly at 37 deserves better than a put-down. He leads the renamed Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with vigor, intelligence, an admirable sense of color and timing and timbre.

His vision of the Fourth is very much a young person’s, and as such, provocative and engaging.

He sees it, obviously, not as an exercise in the abstruse, or an autumnal reflection on a life now over; in his view, it is a series of logical climaxes and wondrous melodies. No harm in that, or in this performance, which flowed and peaked and gave pleasure.

And the program opener, the Overture to Rossini’s “Semiramide,” served as reminder of the virtuosity and easy authority this brilliant orchestra exerts over all its repertory. Among many other joys was the playing of the splendid horn section.

In the middle, Chailly offered a new piece written for the orchestra by Luciano Berio, a “restoration” (Berio’s word) of sketches made by Franz Schubert for a Tenth Symphony.

Granting that to spend time with Berio’s fervid and overactive imagination can be an engrossing experience, one still finds this strange melange--it goes on for three movements and 32 minutes--a trial. Others, clearly, feel differently. Count Chailly and the players of the Concertgebouw ensemble among them. They gave the new/old piece every opportunity to make a strong impression.