The honeymoon continues with conductor Mischa Santora and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra.

        On Sunday, for the fifth concert of his first season as music director, Mr. Santora introduced a 20th-century work and an exceptional pianist to the CCO audience. If listeners were at all skeptical about hearing Ligeti's Ramifications, composed in 1969, Mr. Santora sold the piece to them with a sound-bite demonstration first. The rest of the program in Memorial Hall, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 17 in G, K. 453 with pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn, and Schubert's Symphony No. 5, needed no sales pitch.

        Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti (b. 1923) is known for what he calls “micropolyphony” — a crowding of parts, producing atmospheric textures. Stanley Kubrick made Ligeti something of a household name when his music was used in the soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

        Ramifications is scored for 12 strings in two groups, with one group tuned a quarter-tone higher. (“It sounds slightly out of tune — I assure you, it's intentional,” Mr. Santora said.)

        The piece opened with the musicians playing a busy, minimalist phrase — each musician's line slightly out of sync with the others. The effect was of swarming bees, or, as Mr. Santora phrased it, “crawly music.”

        The lines grew intense as the piece worked up a frenzy to icy high harmonics that registered like fingernails on a blackboard, before falling back down to earth. The musicians gave the complex score a scintillating reading that interested and enthralled most in the audience.

        Mozart wrote his Piano Concerto No. 17 in G, K. 453, for a student. It may have fewer technical demands, but no less wit and sparkle than his other concertos. In his CCO debut, Mr. Solzhenitsyn (who has performed next door with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra) performed a sensitive, nuanced account.

        What was most arresting was the collaboration: the dialogue between winds and piano in the slow movement, the fine sense of balance and tempo, and a rare oneness of spirit between soloist and orchestra.

        One reason for such unity of feeling may be because Mr. Solzhenitsyn and Mr. Santora (both 28) are onetime colleagues from the Curtis Institute of Music. Another may be because of Mr. Solzhenitsyn's other work as a conductor and chamber musician.

        Using a light, clean touch, his phrasing was elegant and beautifully shaped from the first note. The slow movement was deeply felt, and the finale, with its operatic burst at the end, sparkled. Mr. Solzhenitsyn ornamented the theme in these variations with fleet fingers and a wonderful sense of color and mood.

        If there was one wish, it was that he had been provided a full-sized concert grand (instead of a 7-foot Steinway). The piano lacked resonance and was uneven. nine-foot

        The afternoon concluded with a buoyant reading of Schubert's Symphony No. 5. The CCO is playing better all the time, and Mr. Santora has a grasp of what he can do in a difficult acoustic.

        The first movement had a notable richness of texture, and the conductor illuminated its inner detail. Tempos were unhurried yet there was good momentum, and the orchestra displayed admirable attack and energy. A highlight came in the Andante, where Mr. Santora emphasized its songfulness.

        Mr. Santora made the most of contrast between light and dark, and seemed to inspire joy in his players. The strings played with finesse, and the horns (Steve Gross and Randy Gardner) deserve special mention.

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