With good reason. Tanglewood, in the wealthy hills of the Berkshires, is a gorgeous piece of real estate, and comes with a knowing summer crowd of New Yorkers and Bostonians.

But it turns out the Philadelphia Orchestra has within easy reach a setting that surpasses Tanglewood in natural beauty and the ever-important amenities. Saturday night the ensemble visited Longwood Gardens, the horticultural wonderland near Kennett Square and Chadds Ford - just 30 miles west of Philadelphia - and so spectacular was the experience one couldn't help imagining its potential as part of a solution to the orchestra's increasingly peripatetic and artistically unfocused summers.

The orchestra was set up not in Longwood's Open Air Theatre (whose stage was too small), but on a temporary, slightly raked, canvas-covered platform constructed over the Main Fountain Garden. Neat rows of white wooden seats were placed between the fountains and the conservatory, as well as on the conservatory terrace, providing comfortable perches for a nearly sold-out crowd of about 2,800.

Longwood closed its gates at 6 p.m., so the well-heeled audience that remained behind came specifically for the orchestra (there was no starry guest soloist), paying between $35 and $150 a head to hear the Philadelphians led by Rossen Milanov in 75 minutes of Bernstein, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky and Gershwin.

As the warm, clear evening ended, the fountains were turned on and illuminated in red, white and blue, bubbling and shooting a misty, chlorine-scented choreography to "Stars and Stripes Forever."

Who were these listeners shouting "encore!" and clapping in rhythm? They looked more affluent than the usual summer orchestra-goers, the men more likely to be dressed in Brooks Brothers plaids than tees, their wives in floral summer dresses.

Longwood director Paul B. Redman said he talked to people from Baltimore, Lancaster and New Jersey - "and a lot of people from West Chester, which is great because I don't know how many of those people get downtown to hear the orchestra."

Anyone wanting to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra in summer has more options than ever, downtown and well beyond. There were three "Best Of" concerts in Verizon Hall in June - when the orchestra never used to be heard in the city. Three free neighborhood concerts visit a rotating list of communities. There are concerts at the Mann Center (though they'e been cut to nine from 18). Soon the orchestra takes off for a second stint of concerts in Vail, Colo. And the summer ends with three weeks at the upstate New York's Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

Does the orchestra have a future to be explored at Longwood, with its 1,050 acres of formal gardens, conservatories, woods and pastures? Clearly the two institutions draw on a similar demographic and have a shared interest in cultivating a summer relationship.

Redman, who is also importing students from the Curtis Institute of Music for concerts, says Longwood and the orchestra will be talking.

"We hope it's the start of something beautiful," he said.

The obvious hurdle is acoustical. On Saturday, engineers worked a sound board, doing a fine job of balancing instrumental sections. Through large speakers, the orchestra's sound was not significantly different than what's heard at the farthest reaches at the Mann Center - decent, if not ideal. An orchestra-Longwood partnership of substance would have to entail the building of a new concert venue – an intriguing project, to be sure.

But even experienced electronically, the orchestra came across magnificently, especially when factoring in the ambient pleasures of bird chirps, fireflies and the general scent of green. Milanov was in particularly good form, bringing more risk-taking and interpretive shaping to the Gershwin/Bennett Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture than he had on Thursday night in Verizon Hall. "Summertime" was unusually languid, perhaps a function of the temperature on stage. "I know it was hot as blazes up there," said orchestra board member Elise du Pont after the concert, hopping aboard the orchestra's chartered bus for a moment to thank players.

Du Pont, who was helpful in bringing together gardens and orchestra, might have been echoing another du Pont, Longwood founder Pierre S., who brought in the orchestra in 1941. For that concert, Eugene Ormandy led Wagner's Overture to Die Meistersinger, Brahms' Variations on a Theme of Haydn, Mozart's Symphony No. 35, the "Scherzo" from Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Sibelius Finlandia and Strauss' "Wine, Women and Song."

Afterwards, Ormandy wrote du Pont to say he couldn't imagine a more beautiful setting for a Mozart opera, hinting that the orchestra would like to return for a second performance.

A 67-year hiatus is a long one, though Saturday's trial balloon sailed so beautifully it seemed clear that the wait for the orchestra's third visit to Longwood should be considerably shorter.

The beauty of the place, Milanov told the audience, "makes us want to come over and over again."