The Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra had its troubles Sunday night, but it still played well enough to make its opening concert of the season a successful one. As in previous years, conductor Russell Stanger based his program on inherent musical values rather than on case of performance.

Bach's Fourth Brandenburg Concerto is the kind of music that loses all its effectiveness without a graceful, polished performance. The orchestra gave it just that. Flutists Kathleen Henry and Karin Peterson played easily and lucidly, while Sandor Shapiro's violin performance was appropriately subdued. The string section and Daniel Pinkham's harpsichord supplied a carefully integrated accompaniment.

This case of execution was noticeably lacking in the Mozart Symphony No. 39, which opened the program. Occasional wrong notes and faulty entrances are inevitable and excusable, but the plodding, unsubtle treatment of the first two movements was an interpretive mistake that Stanger should have corrected. The final movements went much better: the was doggedly--but not pedantically--precise, and the orchestra seemed to leap through the finale without taking a breath. The woodwinds sounded exceptionally good, blending with each other as well as with the rest of the orchestra.

Then came Sibelius' First Symphony. When it was good it was very, very good; but when it was bad it was