Impressive Effort by Symphony : Music: The San Diego Symphony’s triumphant performance in a concert of eclectic works shows how far it has come under the baton of Yoav Talmi.

When music director Yoav Talmi selected Friday night’s San Diego Symphony program, it was intended to be the season’s grand finale. Although an unanticipated shuffle of the symphony’s schedule moved Friday’s program to the penultimate position, (there is one more program slated for next Thursday and Friday) Talmi’s intentionally eclectic assemblage of Sibelius, Mozart and Stravinsky served nevertheless as an ideal report card on the current season’s musical progress.

Over the year the orchestra has done its homework diligently, so it was no surprise that its polished, even elegant, performance Friday elicited smiles from Talmi and fervent applause from the sizable Copley Symphony Hall audience.

Under Talmi’s steady hand, the Mozart Symphony No. 35 (“Haffner”) crackled with well-disciplined excitement and gracefully energetic phrasing. Talmi’s approach may have been plushly old-fashioned--he used a large orchestra and favored muscular downbeats--but even the period instrument aficionado could have been seduced by such sophisticated playing. Despite the number of players on stage, the orchestra’s timbre remained sweet and supple.

In Stravinsky’s second “Firebird” Suite (1919), the orchestra shamelessly flaunted its virtuosity to magnificent effect: delectable solos soared over shimmering surfaces, and smashing fortes contrasted with perfectly focused pianissimos. Talmi conducted a Stravinsky with heart, not the ascetic, calculating sonic engineer favored by David Atherton, Talmi’s predecessor.

Violinist Miriam Fried gave the Sibelius Violin Concerto in D Minor a passionate and beautifully shaped interpretation. Her sumptuous sound, clean execution of the most demanding passage work, and evident sympathy with the composer’s aspirations made it difficult to imagine a more persuasive account of this grandiloquent concerto. Not even Fried’s passion could redeem the middle movement’s sentimental mediocrity, and the last movement commenced with soloist and orchestra struggling to find the same tempo. But overall, the concerto swept the listener along with a stream of sumptuous melody from both soloist and orchestra.

The urgency and stirring fanfares of “Lemminkainen’s Return,” the final segment of Sibelius’ “Four Legends,” Op. 22, served as a fitting prelude to the Violin Concerto. It was refreshing to hear this rarely played tone poem in place of the typical opera overture curtain-raiser. Perhaps Talmi will find an opportunity in a future season to play the complete “Four Legends,” which includes “The Swan of Tuonela.”