Take one concert, present it on the Boston Symphony's Monday night off, add Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra plus an all-Stravinsky program. Recipe for disaster, no?

Igor Stravinsky was born in 1882. Dvorak hadn't composed the New World Symphony or Cello Concerto yet, Brahms had just finished his second Piano Concerto, Mahler -- Mahler was 22. Yet in the year 2009 -- 127 years later -- plenty of folks regard Stravinsky as the paradigm of some distasteful trend called "modern music."

The concert, however, was such a surefire success that it was performed in the 5000-seat Koussevitzky Music Shed rather than the 1000-seat Ozawa Chamber Music Hall, as is customary for the student orchestra. A good-sized audience heard Boston Symphony guest conductor Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos lead two ballet scores: the complete "Pulcinella" and the "Firebird" suite.

But what they came for was between the two: the Concerto for Piano and Winds, played by Peter Serkin (click HERE), whose onstage manner and technique are cool and controlled, and whose advocacy for 20th century repertory is white-hot. The 62-year-old Serkin, long a Tanglewood faculty member, has been beloved by this community since the days when he took bows with his toddler in his arms.

From almost a century out, this piece had nothing fearsome, but sounded like neo-Classicism with vinegar. In no way forbidding, its propulsive energy, nasal wind timbres and zippy rhythms were infectiously popped out by conducting fellow Ryan McAdams. Stravinsky, awake: your time is come.