French conductor Stéphane Denève. Once in a while a sumptuous French banquet comes our way to reminds us that it’s good to be alive and to savor the earth’s bounty by virtue of the uniqueness of that splendid cuisine. Excellence is what distinguished the New World Symphony’s April 12 French concert under the superb direction of Stéphane Denève. At 43, the French conductor is a rising star and for good reason, witnesses the fantastic chemistry he achieved with his musicians, who responded diligently and fervently to his leadership. Denève confirmed the positive impression he left a few seasons ago, when he performed with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. On this occasion he conducted, with no less skill, a program featuring the works of Arthur Honegger, Francis Poulenc and Camille Saint-Saëns. Honegger’s Summer Pastoral, inspired by the sensuality of the Rimbaud poem Dawn, was the ideal beginning of a concert that was wallcast to the adjoining park. Brief and perfect, it was just right for the warm and perfect twilight that hundreds enjoyed “sur l’herbe.” With each program, NWS conducting fellow Christian Reif demonstrates anew his versatility. Evocative and calm, this aubade by the Swiss-Norman (Parisian by choice) Honegger owes quite a bit to Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. It shares the same delicacy and transparency that Reif successfully served as an appetizer. A delicious surprise was Poulenc’s seldom-performed Suite for The Model Animals, with English actor Richard Haylor flawlessly narrating the La Fontaine fables that inspired Serge Lifar’s 1942 ballet. The date forces us to imagine its allusions and ironies, and the circumstances under which it was composed: at the height of World War II, when Paris was under German occupation. Between dawn and a typically French déjeuner, we saw a lion in love, two fighting cocks, a veteran among lovers and a woodsman facing a masked Death, all subtle references to the moment. Strains of the old melody Alsace and Lorraine from the Franco-Prussian War also served to convey subtly disguised protest. Every section was masterfully and precisely handled by Denève, highlighting the work’s visual – almost cinematic – quality of obvious theatrical roots, full of colors and textures that the orchestra captured at every moment, to the audience’s delight. In fact, Poulenc’s suite eclipsed somewhat what should have been the star of the evening: Saint-Saëns’ Third Symphony for Organ, Piano and Orchestra. It was nevertheless a pièce de résistance that did not disappoint, thrilling the audience in a manner as obvious as it was predictable. An encyclopedic European par excellence, Saint-Saëns was not only a bon-vivant who absorbed the best of the two centuries in which he lived. He also expressed it in a vast, multicolored oeuvre evincing a strong European vision, even when he looked to Africa and the Orient for inspiration. In his monumental Third Symphony he embraced traditions, not only that of Liszt to whom he dedicated the work, but also that of the untempered Berlioz, his great predecessor. The piece’s wide orchestral range, which allows every section, even each instrument, to show off, was exploited by Denève with brilliance. The conductor also achieved expert balance in a work that tends toward deafening excess, more so in a concert hall like the NWS’s. The mastery of dynamics – and decibels – was the conductor’s hallmark. He steered a work as well-known as it is exuberant, and thus prone to grandiloquent excesses, into safe harbor. The brass – especially the trombones – the strings, woodwinds and organ (played by Yu Zhang) vibrated and made the crowds inside and outside the hall quiver as well. It was in short, an authentic banquet that combined the rural and the cosmopolitan: an undeniably French feast.