Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra completed their October retrospective of Richard Strauss’s music Thursday night. After the last of the composer’s tone poems and his Four Last Songs came excerpts of his final opera, Capriccio, in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. The three-week tribute marked the 75th anniversary of Strauss’s death last month.

Noseda opened with the introduction to Capriccio, an extended prelude for string sextet. It is a ravishing way to begin an opera, a chamber music moment that segues into a sextet playing in the château of the Countess. Playing it with 28 strings robbed the piece of much of its intimate magic, though the few passages reduced to one on a part gave a taste of the possible effect of this singular music.

The final scene of the opera followed, beginning with the Mondscheinmusik, depicting the arrival of evening. Abel Pereira gave a glossy sheen to the serene horn solo, followed by a surge of luscious strings as the music swooned. 

Soprano Renée Fleming took the stage to sing the Countess’s final scene, with the brief interchanges with the Major-Domo excised. After debating symbolically about which is more important to opera, poetry or music, the Countess leaves the matter undecided.

Twenty years ago, Fleming sang this role in a thought-provoking meta-production by Robert Carsen at the Opéra de Paris, one of my most savored operatic memories, a performance fortunately captured on DVD. In the intervening years, her voice has weakened somewhat: the top notes no longer soared quite so effortlessly, and Noseda had to hold the NSO to very controlled dynamics at times.

In spite of those minor shortcomings, Fleming brought considerable beauty, grace, and dignity to this difficult scene, remarkable for its long orchestral passages and quiet moments accompanied just by harp and a few instruments. In the curious ending, with its whimsical lack of a conclusion, she set limpid high notes delicately in place. Noseda guided the orchestra through the postlude, with its sudden silences, with assurance.

One of the surprises of the Noseda era at the NSO has been the strength of the Italian conductor’s approach to the music of Johannes Brahms. His take on the First Symphony exceeded expectations from his smoldering rendition of the Fourth Symphony, back in 2018. Noseda drew out the seething qualities of the first movement, which opened on a burning pedal point in the basses, contrabassoon, and timpani.

Noseda observed the repeat of the exposition, sometimes omitted from this lengthy symphony, maximizing the churning power of the score. Harrison Linsey excelled on the oboe solos, playing top chair for the third consecutive week in the absence of both the principal and assistant principal musicians. The horns added brilliant excitement to the development and coda, as allusions to the main theme of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony multiplied.

The NSO strings brought an intense, burnished polish to the second movement, which Noseda directed with dramatic, romantic sweep. After delicate solo playing from oboe and clarinet, concertmaster Nurit Bar-Josef glowed effulgently in the closing violin solo passage. Noseda’s tempo choice for the third movement moved a little too quickly perhaps, but the NSO trusted the beat and made musical sense of this charming, understated dance.

Drama returned for the tense Finale, which Noseda negotiated with careful pacing of the tempo changes. Abel Pereira brought a majestic tone to the famous horn solo in the slow introduction, followed by the solemn, almost liturgical addition of the three trombones to the score. The violins stated the main theme that concludes the symphony with soft, unsentimental beauty. Again Noseda’s slightly up-tempo approach caused a few minor issues in the complicated contrapuntal section, but the gutsy playing of the NSO showed poise and assurance that drove the piece to a rousing finish.

The program will be repeated 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. kennedy-center.org

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