For more than a century, violinists have enjoyed feeling superior to Leopold Auer, the Hungarian-born soloist and teacher who notoriously declined to premiere the concerto that Peter Tchaikovsky wrote for him in 1878. Although Auer -- so the story goes -- pronounced the concerto "unplayable," it soon became a repertory staple, enabling countless fiddlers-on-the-make to boast of mastering a work supposedly deemed unmanageable by its original dedicatee. (Auer, who denied using the provocative label, eventually played the piece, with his own edits.)

Vadim Gluzman, the Ukrainian-born Israeli who joined the Minnesota Orchestra and conductor/host Andrew Litton for a blistering rendition of the concerto on Saturday's Sommerfest concert, is a superb musician with a taste for new and offbeat repertoire. Hence it was a little discouraging to find him and Litton rehashing the "unplayability" theme on the stage of Orchestra Hall. But Gluzman has better reason than most: He plays what was once Auer's violin, a 1690 Stradivarius of enormous sonorous power, with a deliciously dark low register. For me, this larger-than-life instrument nearly upstaged the now-hackneyed concerto and its performers.

Stradivarius aside, Saturday's performance was distinguished by some wonderfully hushed playing from both orchestra and soloist, and by an exceptionally poised account of the middle-movement Canzonetta. But thrill seekers could not have been disappointed: Gluzman, with Litton in hot pursuit, tore through the last movement at a clip that would draw a standing ovation even in a cemetery.

The Tchaikovsky was far from an ideal setup piece for Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 4 -- the more substantial work on Saturday's program. The concerto exemplifies a "higher-faster-farther" aesthetic, centered on virtuosity; it's largely about adrenaline. The symphony is a chapter in Mahler's spiritual autobiography. They ask for different ears.

Litton is plainly on intimate terms with the Fourth, of which he's made two recordings; he captured the inner tensions in a score whose sunniness and innocence are subject to exaggeration.

Soprano Heidi Grant Murphy sang knowingly in the brief final movement, balancing artifice and naiveté in what one critic has called "a Christmas-card view of a peasant's heaven." Associate concertmaster Roger Frisch scraped tellingly in the sinister scherzo.

Larry Fuchsberg writes regularly about music.