Although often accused of being too cerebral, classical music can also be fun and playful, as evidenced by Mozart’s comic opera The Marriage of Figaro and Bach’s bestselling box set of prank calls. Get tickled by piccolos with this deal to see Masterworks 11: The Satirist & The Philosopher, presented by the Columbus Symphony Orchestra at the Ohio Theatre. For $23, you get one ticket for orchestra or mezzanine seating on Saturday, April 14, at 8 p.m. (up to a $50.70 value, including all fees).

As part of the Masterworks series, the CSO’s musicians band together under the baton of Jean-Marie Zeitouni for an evening that begins with the overture to Mozart’s The Magic Flute. First performed in Prague in 1791, just months before Mozart’s death, the overture progresses from a stately, emphatic opening to a rushing interplay of horns and strings that veers between urgency and levity like the captive of an ogre who keeps demanding more jokes.

The evening continues with a world premiere from Donald Harris, an OSU School of Music emeritus professor whose aesthetic was formed in the heady modernist atmosphere of mid-20th-century Paris. His Symphony no. 2 is the first piece commissioned for the CSO in 20 years. Finally, the orchestra will delve into Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, op. 30, a piece whose booming timpani introduction has been immortalized in 2001: A Space Odyssey and countless montages of animals setting world records.

WOSU’s Christopher Purdy shares his classical-music expertise with hungry minds in a preconcert talk that begins one hour prior to each performance. Then, each patron heads to one of 2,779 seats tucked into the Spanish-Baroque masterpiece Ohio Theatre, built in the vaudeville heyday of the 1920s.