Summer solstice, the Northern Hemisphere’s longest day of the year, has a long tradition of hoopla and partying in Scandinavian countries. This day when the sun never goes down has been definitively celebrated in film by Ingmar Bergman’s tale of ribald revelry, “Smiles of a Summer Night.”

In symphonic music, a similar place is held by Hugo Alfven’s “Midsommarvaka” (Midsummer Vigil). While it’s seasonally out of sync for Buffalo in February, it does make a spirited opener for the Buffalo Philharmonic’s weekend Classics Series concerts, with guest Jorge Mester on the podium.

It’s a piece most music lovers instantly recognize from its jaunty opening clarinet solo, but cannot identify. Built on a seemingly endless flow of Swedish folk tunes, Alfven has set them with all kinds of orchestral color splashes, essentially buoyant, but with a reflective slow middle section. But for a staccato section with a bit too much bounce, Mester and the BPO gave a very satisfying tour of the endless day’s festivities.

Scandinavian music of a much darker hue is at the center of the program, Sibelius’ ardent Violin Concerto in D minor. Soloist Jennifer Frautschi played the whispered opening theme, over tremolo strings, with an exquisite sense of romantic phrasing and blossoming ardor. The emotional center of the movement is in two widely spaced, intensely passionate upward declamations in which Frautschi gave evidence of both dazzling technique and stunning power.

She played the slow movement’s tender lines with deftly nuanced phrasing that overrode its core sentimentality, and in the strident and impulsive Finale made her violin sing with a compelling dark intensity. The program concludes with Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 in A minor (“Scottish”), arguably his finest, in a performance that is too often about one dynamic level too high. Mester presents a consistent view of the symphony that can be enjoyed on its own, but in the process the first movement loses some of its suggestiveness and anticipation, the enchanting Scherzo lacks crispness, and the Adagio wants a bit more solemnity.

All of Mester’s instincts pay off in the Finale, where the dynamic level serves the music’s sense of declamation, while the wonderful coda is celebratory but not rushed.

Concert Review

Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra

Classics series with guest conductor Jorge Mester and violin soloist Jennifer Frautschi. Repeats

8 p. m. today in Kleinhans Music Hall.