The last time I saw a concert at Mandel Hall, over fifty years ago, it was Chuck Berry singing and playing his guitar for three straight hours, while throwing in an impressive display of duckwalking across the stage.

The old place looked much the same to me, only nicer, and more comfortable. Sure enough, I found that it had been renovated in 2013.

The Pacifica Quartet, the 2023-24 Ensemble in Residence, stayed in their chairs and didn’t sing about school days, but, like Berry, they probably have something Beethoven in their repertoire, and sure can pluck those strings, though they only deal with four each, while Berry had six.

Behind the quartet, the University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra barely squeezed onto the stage, leaving no room for duckwalking even if they wanted to. They probably had to pick pieces with short bow strokes to avoid hitting each other.

The two groups combined beautifully for Paulus’s Three Places of Enlightenment, while the orchestra nicely opened with Montgomery’s Starburst and closed with Suk’s Scherzo fantastique, Op.25.

I didn’t leave with an earworm of Berry’s double-stop licks, unison bends, and major-minor modal shifts, but felt very entertained, relaxed and satisfied.