Edo de Waart, MSO, pianist Ingrid Fliter

Things that make you go huh?: This weekend’s Milwaukee Symphony program, comprising Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Gambit, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 and Henk de Vlieger’s 50-minute orchestral compression of Wagner’s Die Meisteringer.

The three seem like wild throws from left, center and right, but they do have something in common: happiness. The concerto is brightly happy. Salonen’s Gambit is brilliantly and raucously happy. And de Vlieger’s Cliff’s Notes version of Wagner’s only comic opera serves up happiness as weighty and dark as a Kopp’s extra-thick chocolate shake .

Pianist Ingrid Fliter was a joy in the Mozart. Her light touch and bright sound fit the music exactly. Everything sounded easy. The fleet piano embroideries in the first and third movements flew from her hands as easily and naturally as if she were strewing seeds in a sunny field. She endowed the slow movement with the languid ease of a rest beneath a shade tree. The concerto was a stroll in the country on the most beautiful day of spring.

The fun of Gambit lies in timbre and structure.

Salonen begins with an murmuring tremolo of  flutes and a distant, intermittent clatter of Chinese blocks. Indistinct clouds of tutti harmony engulf these elements. The sound builds to an intense glow and finally a big bang, leaving just a low clarinet. Another build-up, another explosion; but this time a chord of three woodwinds emerges from it. The process repeats several times, and each time the aftermath of the explosion becomes more complex. At last, it develops melodic and harmonic drive and takes over the piece. Salonen builds it into a juggernaut of a dance that leads to an epic explosion. When the dust settles, flutes and clarinets rock back and forth on seconds, in a greatly slowed-down version of their opening tremolos. De Waart and the MSO played this clever, exhilarating 10 minutes of music with swashbuckling panache.

De Vlieger arranged elements of music as they appear in Wagner’s opera and composed transitions to connect them. No singers are involved. The result is a sort of tone poem, or perhaps medley, with 11 episodes that outline the plot. He stuck very much to Wagner’s style.

It’s not easy, and the orchestra sometimes proceeded cautiously, especially in the first three episodes. A complicated meshing of the violas and the second violins in the Apprentices Song bit seemed to present particular ensemble problems.

They gained assurance as the densely orchestrated piece went on. The pace finally picked up for the march-like processions of the Guilds and of the Meistersingers. Walther’s contest-winning song soared with lyric beauty, and the final celebratory bit had the energy of a drinking song.

This piece and the concert as a whole needed a happy ending, and they got it.

This program, given at Marcus Center Uihlein Hall, will be repeated at 8 p.m. Saturday (Jan. 30). For tickets and further information, visit the MSO website or call the Marcus box office, 414-273-7206.