New London - An Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra concert Saturday featuring two of the most revered players ever to call the Garde Arts Center their home stage brought an enthusiastic response from their many local fans as the ECSO performed a group of "Fantastic Fantasies" to a crowd of about 900.

Concertmaster Stephan Tieszen, a consummate technician and well-loved leader of the string section, and principal double bassist Thomas Green, who has announced an impending retirement as a teacher at Ledyard High School and ECSO musician to move out west, both demonstrated to the Garde crowd that they are capable of handling extremely demanding and virtuosic scores.

Tieszen's turn came in the second piece of the evening, Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1, op. 26, an earnest and sensuous piece he played with sublime control and a sweet tone in the difficult higher registers. He was especially effective in the softer sections, showing off the gorgeous phrasing he is known for, and though he is no showman the crowd responded in appreciation with a standing ovation.

Green came on after intermission, playing Johann Baptist Vanhal's rarely performed Double Bass Concerto with a much-reduced orchestra. The smaller numbers made sense because the double bass, the lowest stringed instrument in the orchestra, can be hard to hear if it has to compete with brassier timbres.

The concerto featured catchy melodies and orchestration reminiscent of the most danceable Mozart as Green, playing on a podium without relying on the score, performed the piece with lightning-quick hands running up and down the long neck of his instrument. He was particularly good during several cadenzas that showed off the full range of the instrument and which demonstrated the immense physicality involved in playing such a cumbersome instrument.

Green sat up straight after the concerto's emphatic ending, pointing to himself and waving to the crowd, which included several Ledyard High students and alumni, many of whom stood to honor his local legacy as teacher and musician, starting in the Coast Guard Band.

The concert started with conductor Toshiyuki Shimada leading the ECSO in Tchaikovsky's Hamlet: Fantasy Overture, op. 67, a breezy whirlwind full of drama that the orchestra played at full tilt.

But the highlight of the concert may well have been the final piece, Zoltan Kodaly's Hary Janos Suite, op. 15, that featured the cimbalon, played by Nicholas Tolle. The cimbalon is one of the oddest and most interesting instruments that even veteran concertgoers may have never heard before, a kind of cross in sound between a harpsichord and a gong that looks a bit like an oversized zither being struck by odd-shaped tongs.

The cimbalon brought an other-worldly sound to the piece, at times sounding mechanical but then suddenly metamorphizing into a shimmering waterfall. And the suite itself called for a wide range of sounds and emotions, a smorgasbord of possibilities that Shimada did a brilliant job reining in with his amazing ability to direct changes of tempo that draw full drama from the score.

The very large orchestra was particularly powerful in the fourth section, titled "The Battle and Defeat of Napoleon," featuring an ostentatious trombone section and equally infectious trumpet fanfares in a parody of military music. The piece also featured a section titled "The Viennese Musical Clock" that often is played for children's classical performances - another magical moment in a night of fantasy.