If you missed one of the two opportunities to hear the Napa Valley Symphony Orchestra perform last weekend, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Neither of the weekend concerts was a complete sell-out, although lots of enthusiastic music lovers were on hand at both.

If Saturday night’s performance was as good as the repeat on Sunday afternoon, you sure would have gotten your money’s worth. Those of us who were there sure did.

A glorious program included the most-played Rachmaninoff work for piano and orchestra in the repertoire, featuring brilliant soloist Leon Bates; an opportunity to become reacquainted with the father of Bohemian music, Bedrich Smetana; and another welcome occasion to listen to our finely tuned orchestra pay tribute to the Napa Valley in a rewarding pastoral suite composed by symphony maestro Asher Raboy.

A very accessible work written and premiered five years ago — while the orchestra’s current digs were under renovation — “A Mystic Valley” is a series of eight snapshots of the Napa Valley, commissioned by symphony benefactors Lonne and Donald Carr.

A musical celebration of the Napa Valley, the work is Raboy’s impression of wine country, spotlighting Mother Nature and people, past and present, as well as the “beauty, mystery and humanity” of the place where we live.

The enchanting tone poem is launched with a sweeping romantic theme carried by warm, comforting violins and the rich, creamy sound of a saxophone. It is evocative of the greening of the valley, while other sections speak to romping tykes, terpsichorean hijinks, and the majestic workhorse of another day, the Old Bale Mill. The 25-minute work at times is reminiscent of the descriptive scoring of Ferde Grofé, painting musical pictures of a dewy sunrise and a breathtaking, mystical sunset.

Addressing the beauty that is Napa Valley, the work sounded a lot better in Lincoln Theater than it did during the orchestra’s 70th season at Chardonnay Hall.

The 64-member orchestra doted on the composer’s every downbeat, every nuance, delivering a lovely reading.

For this listener, Raboy has captured the mood and movement of the nation’s best known plot of wine country in both playful and romantic fashion. As noted five years ago, “A Mystic Valley” is a charming work, one of which the maestro can justly be proud.

Great choice for romantic work

One couldn’t have asked for a better interpreter of Rachmaninoff — and his “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” — than Leon Bates.

One of the nation’s best pianists, Bates has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony and the Atlanta Symphony, to name but a few. It was his second appearance this past weekend with the Napa Valley Symphony Orchestra.

As the title suggests, Rachmaninoff took the 24th of Paganini’s notoriously difficult Caprices for Solo Violin and wrote his own notoriously difficult 24 variations for piano and orchestra.

Highlights of the 25-minute composition — composed in the style of a concerto — include the seventh, with its echoes of the medieval chant Dies Irae, and the ultra-romantic 18th — probably Rachmaninoff’s “biggest hit.” The Rhapsody became the composer’s own signature piece, and he performed it often and to great acclaim on tour.

Bates can hold his own with any of his peers who’ve recorded the work. I used to think that the Philippe Entremont recording in the early ’60s was the be-all, end-all disc to own. But Bates and the Napa Valley Symphony Orchestra made me wish Sunday afternoon’s collaboration had been recorded.

Magisterial and powerful, Bates made it seem so effortless, like he tosses it off every other day before breakfast. The personable pianist’s performance was dazzling. Raboy was with him in every bar, orchestral detail persuasively delineated, ensuring a glorious blossoming of string tone at the 18th variation, the finale reaching an exciting pitch.

The orchestra was on the mark as well in the opening segment, performing Smetana’s “Overture to The Bartered Bride,” along with a trio of seldom-heard dances from the opera, including a festive Czech dance called the furiant.

Overtures to operas are usually written almost as afterthoughts, but Smetana was so taken with the plot line for this comic tale of love that he wrote the lively prelude before beginning any other work on the opera. The result was a piece that stands alone beautifully, yet still serves as a wonderful introduction to the work that made Smetana famous.

Raboy injected imaginative detail in the reading and the players faithfully followed. The composer would have been pleased.