Fabien Gabel goes big in this season's final shot at leading the Minnesota Orchestra

The auditions are over.

February and March looked like the finals in the competition to replace Osmo Vänskä as Minnesota Orchestra music director. Four frequently visiting conductors dropped by for the last time this season, concluding with France's Fabien Gabel, who seemed to have established solid chemistry with the orchestra's musicians over the course of 2021.

On Friday night, Gabel led a concert at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis featuring three perennial favorites: Peter Tchaikovsky's ultra-romantic Violin Concerto, a suite from Richard Strauss' emotion-packed opera "Der Rosenkavalier," and Maurice Ravel's "La valse," a piece that's delightful until it turns chilling.

So, one could expect a favorable reception. The more important issue was what the concert said about what kind of music director Gabel might be. My overriding impression was that he's bent on bigness. This conductor seems to thrive on massive music.

He demonstrated it last time in town with Hector Berlioz's sprawling "Symphonie Fantastique," and the stage was similarly crowded with musicians on Friday. From start to finish, the program was packed with big sounds.

Gabel displayed an impressive command of varied dynamics, especially on an exquisitely well-crafted "Rosenkavalier." But when it got loud, it got very loud, particularly on the concert-opening piece, "Crimson," by Canadian composer Samy Moussa.

Nothing pushed aside the impression left by past Gabel visits. He's an old-school conductor ideal for romantic repertoire, admirably graceful on the podium, straightforward in his direction, seldom surprising with his interpretive choices.

So, perhaps a more intriguing topic is what he chose to conduct. Granted, concert programs involve a lot of negotiation, balancing the preferences of conductor, orchestra management and perhaps a guest soloist.

The Tchaikovsky concerto was clearly suggested by violinist Augustin Hadelich, who's also performing it in Buffalo and South Korea (with Vänskä and the Seoul Philharmonic) during the next month. He did exceptional things with it Friday, his tone rich and delicious, his rapid rides up and down his instrument's range resonant and clear, the cadenzas mesmerizing. He proved most powerful in the concerto's quietest moments, particularly a gripping slow movement.

The Moussa piece was likely Gabel's idea; he's championed it elsewhere. It struck me as a series of sound surges and ebbs that didn't lead the listener in any particular direction, except to the edges of audibility with its extremely high and low tones.

If there was a quintessential triumph in the three programs Gabel has led here in the past year, it was "Rosenkavalier." The orchestra sounded great, the music warm and fluid, beautifully balanced and full of emotion and exceptional solos, particularly in the winds. The conductor controlled the pace masterfully, coaxing an involving sense of anticipation and release from each ritard and accelerando.

But the finale proved a head scratcher. Composed nine years after "Rosenkavalier," Ravel's "La valse" is a similar work in many respects. It clearly comes from the same core inspiration — the 19th-century Viennese waltzes of Johann Strauss and family.

But after seducing you with lovely lyricism, "La valse" gradually goes a bit mad, like a carousel spinning out of control. It can be downright scary in some hands, but not on Friday night. By the time the last notes arrived, the orchestra seemed to have exhausted its capacity for changing up the waltz form, ending the concert with more of a whimper than a whoosh.

Rob Hubbard is a Twin Cities freelance classical music writer. wordhub@yahoo.com.