On Wednesday, March 1, the Boston Symphony Orchestra appeared at Carnegie Hall under conductor Andris Nelsons with pianist Emanuel Ax in what may have been the most remarkable performance of the season.

The program achieved this success despite beginning with Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee by contemporary American composer Gunther Schuller. Schuller is one of the better composers in the recent repertoire, but that is merely a depressing reminder of how barren the last 70 years of orchestral music have been. Schuller’s short pieces were occasionally humorous and succeeded in provoking a genuine response from the audience above and beyond a simple desire not to be there. (Any performance of Detlev Glanert, by comparison, is better spent at the bar.) There was even a certain resonance with the Klee paintings on which Schuller’s Studies were based. But, were it not for the need, understandably felt by music directors and programmers, to have something to represent the second half the 20^th century, these works would not be performed at all. Compared to the Mozart and Beethoven which followed, it sounded like a zoo of instruments happened-upon in the wild, untrained and untamed, albeit pregnant with possibilities.