A dynamo on the podium: Lahav Shani makes his Symphony Hall debut with the BSO

Lahav Shani brought a kinetic presence to the Boston Symphony podium this week. He led without baton and, except for the Saint-Saëns concerto, without a score, favoring robust, incisive gestures over beating time, bouncing on the balls of his feet and head-butting the air for emphasis. That energy infused the program with uncommon vitality and impetus, yet, with one exception, allowed for the subtleties and humor of the various scores to shine.

Prokofiev’s “Classical” Symphony bubbled with playful, Haydenesque humor and sharp articulation with the winds providing most of the effervescence. The composer’s tart harmonies never seemed out-of-place The Gavotte winked with its gawky grace and the Finale bolted nimbly to a brilliant conclusion.

While the Prokofiev danced, Saint-Saëns’ Fifth Piano Concerto sang, but with the same focus on pulse and clarity, even though Shani was scorebound and gesturally more restrained as he coordinated the interplay between soloist and orchestra. Anyone who has heard Jean-Yves Thibaudet perform this concerto in the past, would detect no decline in either expression or virtuosity. The quicksilver, keyboard-spanning runs and arpeggios of the first movement flowed with rippling liquidity. The Andante’s colorful potpourri of Egyptian references was redolently atmospheric. Saint-Saëns described the concerto as the evocation of a sea voyage. Some have suggested that the final movement represents the thrumming of an engine with the piano’s initial low grumbling the ship’s screws starting up and the first theme its bow cutting through the water. If all of this is true, then the thundering blur of Thibaudet’s hands as he raced through the final bars would have likely blown several gaskets.

Rachmaninov considered giving titles to the three movements of his Symphonic Dances: Noon, Twilight, Midnight, but abandoned the idea. Still there is a darkening of color and tone as the dances unfold which Shani captured with growing power and intensity. The bright, bustling energy of the first movement was shaded somewhat by the plangent saxophone and the first hints of the Dies irae, which ties the dances together. Though Fokine voiced reservations about being able to choreograph the Andante’s halting, spectral waltz, Shani made it dance while still expressing the growing anxiety which infects the movement and seeps into the beginning of the next. The Dies irae dominates the final dance, but gradually in contention with an Orthodox liturgical chant announcing the Resurrection Rachmaninov first used in his 1915 All-Night Vigil. The chant injects a ray of hope into the conflict and has the last word. Yet Shani, having the gong resonate after the orchestra stopped, concluded the dances on a note of ambiguity.

The only drawback to Shani’s muscular leadership here was a certain heaviness and lack of dynamic gradation, with louder passages often lacking contrast and sounding too loud. Closer attention and the Rachmaninov would have been nearly flawless.