MUSIC REVIEW : S.D. Symphony Is Well Suited to Do Sibelius : Music: A stirring performance under Hans Graf brings out the best in the orchestra: its brass and winds.

For some curious reason in recent years, the symphonies of Jean Sibelius have appeared infrequently on the San Diego Symphony’s programs. Perhaps former music director David Atherton’s inaugural season almost a decade ago--in which all seven of the Finnish giant’s symphonies were traversed--sated the local appetite.

But, as Thursday evening’s stirring performance of Sibelius’ Second Symphony demonstrated, the extroverted idiom and orchestration--heavy on the brass and winds, with lesser demands on the strings--suits this orchestra to a T.

Hans Graf, the genial principal conductor of Salzburg’s Mozarteum Orchestra, returned to the podium at Copley Symphony Hall to conduct the Sibelius, Mendelssohn’s Suite from “Midsummer Night’s Dream” and Anton Webern’s “Six Pieces for Orchestra,” Op. 6 (1928 version). As the 41-year-old Austrian maestro revealed in his brief visit last spring, he thrives on expansive, emotionally dense scores.

Graf’s natural sympathy for Sibelius’ large-scaled, earthy gestures elicited a rich, gripping performance, yet his comprehensive view of the symphony’s larger structure kept the pace unhurried and secure. Over the second movement’s haunting pizzicato strings, sinuous but beautifully shaded themes floated under his gentle coaxing. From the stentorian authority of the brass chorales in the first movement to the finale’s noble ensemble, the orchestra played in top form.

Graf’s passion for Webern’s Opus 6 was evident in the deliberate yet brilliantly focused results he elicited from the players. But his decision to break up this already terse, pointillistic work into three sections interspersed between four movements from Mendelssohn’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” Suite seriously compromised the Webern.

In an earlier interview, Graf explained that he wanted to surround the dark, demanding Webern segments with Mendelssohn’s familiar movements as a kind of insulation--the way one might pack dishes for the movers. Like the shape of Bartok’s string quartets, the Opus 6 is an immaculately built arch form, which this arrangement destroyed. It also squandered Webern’s cumulative emotional impact, despite the orchestra’s sensitive, precise performance of each individual movement.

The Mendelssohn movements sounded nervous and edgy, however, lacking their wonted elegant surface and immaculate textures. With a conducting style that is more playful than refined, Graf’s generalities did not demand the precision that is the sine qua non for this chestnut.

The orchestra will repeat this program at 2 p.m. Sunday in the new Poway Center for the Performing Arts.