MUSIC REVIEW : Smiling Graf Leaves Patrons Doing the Same

Another suitor took the San Diego Symphony podium Friday night, this time an Austrian lad with a sheepish smirk. Hans Graf’s calling card was a deftly balanced Berlioz program: the redoubtable “Symphonie Fantastique” preceded by the rarely heard orchestral song cycle “Les Nuits D’Ete.”

It took Graf a while to ingratiate himself, but by the end of the concert his modest grin had blossomed into a broad, satisfied smile. The orchestra appeared pleased, and the rambunctious audience exuded unmitigated enthusiasm. While the principal conductor of Salzburg’s Mozarteum Orchestra knew what he wanted from the local orchestra over the long haul, it was not clear at the outset. His conducting style appeared ungainly--he has a sharp left-handed jab that would do any boxer proud--and his downbeat was an imaginary point on a slowly traced circle rather than an unequivocal downward stroke.

He did display admirable stamina in the long five-movement symphony. In his only other appearance with an American orchestra a few weeks ago in Buffalo, N. Y., he conducted Schubert’s “Great” C Major Symphony, and he professes great affinity to the long-winded symphonies of Anton Bruckner. Should Graf win the San Diego post, local patrons may look forward to many long evenings at Symphony Hall.

Graf kept his own presence and the orchestra’s profile subdued in “Les Nuits D’Ete,” a defensible decision, although surely not the only approach. Mezzo-soprano Michele Henderson took a dramatic approach to her assignment, although her unvarying, earnest declamatory style made the piece unnecessarily monochromatic.

She was alternately sweet and agitated, but Gautier’s poetry and Berlioz’s deft, multicolored setting called for a wider emotional vocabulary. Henderson’s instrument, a large but agile mezzo that was bright on the top but weak on the bottom, had an immediate appeal. One might have wished, however, for a more richly sustained cantilena line from this attractive young singer.

In Berlioz’s symphony, the orchestra made one of its finest musical impressions of the season. If it did not quite match the tight discipline and immaculate attention to detail that marked the visiting London Symphony Orchestra’s performance of the same work a few weeks ago at Civic Theatre, it may be forgiven.

The San Diego players made the most of the quiet, solo passages, and the brasses covered themselves with glory in the grand climaxes. Graf wisely saved the orchestra’s true forte until the very end, which made the final sonic explosion all the more gratifying. He asked for and got laudable clarity and individual character in the fourth movement’s uneasy counterpoint. Like the Londoners’ performance, it was worth savoring.