The Honolulu Symphony Orchestra opened its penultimate concert of the season on a somber note but ended triumphantly, seeking a hopeful future.

Orchestra board representative Valerie Ossipoff introduced the evening with an unprecedented pre-concert appeal to the audience for financial assistance:

"The Symphony musicians and staff have been working for nearly three months without pay," Ossipoff said. "Who else do you know who would do that? Ladies and gentlemen, this is our symphony, and they deserve our support."

Ossipoff explained that the orchestra needs $2 million by the end of this month to fulfill its obligations to musicians and staff and to make the coming season possible. The orchestra has established a Hana Laulima funding campaign; details are available at www.honolulusymphony.com.

During the past week, the campaign raised $100,000.

"The musicians of this orchestra are an integral part of our community," Ossipoff said, citing their extensive community service and impact on music education throughout the Islands. "We ask that you give now and commit your support in the future."

Amid that disquieting tone, the music unfolded. Conductor Vasily Petrenko, trained in St. Petersburg, Russia, and now working in London, led the orchestra through an all-Russian concert with grace. Petrenko is an appealing conductor, whose focus remained intently on the music and musicians. Throughout, he elicited light, transparent and carefully controlled interpretations.

That transparency was particularly gratifying in Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 1, featuring soloist William Wolfram.

As a musician, Rachmaninoff possessed a phenomenal technique that he loved to use and that suited late-Romantic expansiveness so much better than the austerity and theoretical bent of the 20th century, the era of his maturity.

Consequently, as a composer, Rachmaninoff was given to lyrical pyrotechnics and grandiosity, one of the reasons he figures more prominently in concert halls than in music history or theory. It's also why his work continues to be performed regularly, while his contemporaries who chose academic accolades over audiences are not.

In Piano Concerto No.1, the pianist plays nigh-unreadable music for almost half an hour with hardly a break. Many pianists lack the hand span even to reach the chords, much less the strength to keep them under control.

Wolfram, fortunately, is a large man, and in his hands those huge chords seemed almost reasonable, the power and control effortless.

Wolfram maintained a clear melodic line through Rachmaninoff's cascades of notes, transitioning smoothly between playing the primary melody and accompanying the orchestra.

He delivered a beautifully crafted reading, balancing overarching structure with minute details and eloquently tapering phrases, such as the perfectly voiced chords that brought the second movement to a quiet close. The cadenza, designed to be impressive, surpassed amazing.

Wolfram played with minimal theatrical display, which may explain the absence of Honolulu's de-rigueur standing ovation, but it is hard to imagine how his performance could have been better.

Perhaps most gratifying was how closely Wolfram and Petrenko shared an understanding of the work, exchanging lines, moving together through tempo changes, never allowing the music to stray into bombast.

Petrenko led into the Rachmaninoff with an early Rimsky-Korsakov suite from "The Tale of Tsar Saltan," a colorfully scored fairy tale much like his later "Sheherazade." The performance was so vivid as to suggest that Rimsky-Korsakov could be considered a composer of film music, creating moods and painting stories in sound before the genre had been invented.

The second half of the concert was devoted to Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1, the first of 15 symphonies that made him among the foremost symphonists in the 20th century.

Shostakovich had a seemingly natural affinity for the orchestra, and even this first symphony, with its noticeable debt to Stravinsky, reveals a symphonic mode of thought. Each of the four movements leads to the next, progressing logically, building on symphonic traditions while incorporating new ideas, and linking the whole by delaying closure until the final climax.

Like many Russian composers, Shostakovich frequently showcased wind soloists. Notable performances on Saturday included those by Scott Anderson (clarinet), Susan McGinn (flute) and Paul Barrett (bassoon). He also included surprises — such as solos on timpani by Stephen Dinion, and piano by Grant Mack. But his first love remained the strings: Concertmaster Ignace Jang's lovely solo, the cellos, the basses, the violins and violas in sweeping uni- sons. Shostakovich's soundscapes are gratifying for both orchestra and audience.

Orchestras often shy away from performing Shostakovich. The symphonies are less well known than earlier masterworks. They are complex, fraught with political undertones, and laden with audience expectations that they are dense works.

Under Petrenko, Shostakovich came across with clarity, grace and coherence, demonstrating how easily the work could become an audience favorite.