It's fascinating to watch Sergei Babayan's fingers while he plays. Those fingers fly in a piece such as Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Major, of course: pummeling the keyboard at points, almost caressing it at others, all in runs so fast that the motion becomes a blur. But watch his fingers when he takes his hands off the keyboard and he puts his arms at his side for a brief rest while the orchestra plays. They still wiggle furiously.

I'm sure that he's just keeping them limber, sort of like a track-and-field runner bouncing up and down on his heels as he awaits the starting gun. But it's almost as if his fingers move of their own volition. They're so eager to get back to the keyboard that they can't help but run in place.

I'll leave the classical review to my Bee colleague, George Warren, but I just wanted to throw in a plug of my own for this afternoon's concert (2:30 p.m. at the Saroyan). The Tchaikovsky was beautiful on Saturday night. For me, it really soared. And Babayan is such an intense player that it's moving just to watch him.

Also impressive in the Tchaikovsky is the Phil's new concertmaster, Aimee Kreston; and the principal cellist, Gerald Miller, III, who joined in the concerto's trio with piano.

It was a moving concert all around. Before starting the second half of the program, maestro Theodore Kuchar mentioned the contributions of two important people the Philharmonic lost this past summer: orchestra manager Paul Gutierrez Jr.; and patron Joseph Francis Desmond. The orchestra played Elgar in their memory, and when it was finished, Kuchar held the musicians absolutely still for a brief time. During that time no one in the Saroyan stirred -- it was absolutely silent. What a fitting and beautiful tribute it was, and a reminder that silence can be music in itself.

(An aside: Gutierrez died in July, and from everyone I've talked to at the Philharmonic, he'll be sorely missed. He and his family set up a blog to keep people posted during his illness; if you take time to read it you'll discover what a remarkable guy he was.)

After that, the orchestra played a lively Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade." This again was a chance for Kreston to shine as concertmaster; the last few phrases, when she reaches for notes so high in the violin's register that it's as if she's scaling the last 10 feet of a mountain peak, were gorgeous.