“Naïve and Sentimental Music,”John Adams'breathtakingly virtuosic 1998 tone poem, is one of the treasures of the orchestral repertoire, but we don’t get a chance to hear it nearly enough.

The performance given in Davies Symphony Hall Friday, Oct. 6, by the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen — a rendition full of instrumental power and tender clarity — was the piece’s first local airing innearly 20 years. It was like a reunion with an old friend.

Or even an old flame, perhaps, one whose charm and beauty remain very much alive. I fell in love with “Naïve and Sentimental Music” on first hearing, and Friday’s performance only rekindled the old ardor.

As the title suggests, it’s the kind of work that invites an emotional response. The dichotomy in the title comes from the German poet Friedrich Schiller, who meant something rather different by the terms than we do, but there’s no reason we can’t appropriate them for our own uses.

Adams' score melts your heart from the opening measures. Against the gentle, guitarlike strumming of two harps, the flutes and oboes introduce a long, winding melody that is both winsome and vague, with the fresh-faced innocence of a child.

Adams has compared this melody, which becomes the main character of the long opening movement, to a Dickensian orphan such as David Copperfield or Oliver Twist, and the image is wondrously apt. The tune makes tentative false starts, forges ahead, curls back upon itself in a blend of courage and uncertainty. You want to admire its pluck and also take it under your wing.

特别是一旦磨破的危险ld begin to appear, in the shape of massed orchestral chords, chugging rhythms and abrupt formal shifts. There’s a thrilling but slightly menacing air about the whole thing, which Salonen and the orchestra rendered with consummate command.

Salonen was the first interpreter of this music, giving the world premiere with theLos Angeles Philharmonicin 1999. Adams' distinctive blend of post-minimalism and the late Romanticism of Bruckner and Sibelius — first forged in his 1985 breakthrough “Harmonielehre” — plays exactly to Salonen’s strengths.

The first movement, full of adventure and incident, takes up most of the narrative impulse of the piece, whose three movements run close to an hour in performance — it’s the Berkeley composer’s longest and most ambitious orchestral score. But Adams has other expressive strains to explore as well.

In the slow second movement, he crafts a rhapsody of almost unbearable sweetness, built on sustained string harmonies and an insinuating solo for guitar superbly delivered by Justin Smith. Here, in music that occasionally harks back to the luminous Adagietto fromMahler’s Fifth Symphony, the listener revels in a seemingly timeless world of sensation.

That in turn gives way to the gathering energy of the finale, which charts a course toward explosive climaxes and a surging intensity. (The three-movement pattern of fast-slow-fast, dating back to the 18th century, is rarely far from Adams' mind.)

The concert’s first half was devoted to the world premiere of “Convergence,” a three-movement violin concerto commissioned by the Symphony from Swedish composer Jesper Nordin.

It’s conceivable that this piece, written for violin soloistPekka Kuusisto(one of Salonen’s eightCollaborative Partners), could have made a stronger impression if it had been paired with something less overpowering than the Adams. Or perhaps not — it’s hard to imagine this 30-minute work landing as much more than tech-driven gimmickry.

At its heart is a software system of Nordin’s invention that allows a performer to wave their hand at an iPad and produce tinkly scales and arabesques. As so often with suchgadgetry, this looked like loads of fun to play around with, but the audible results were underwhelming.

Of more interest was the interplay between the orchestra and Kuusisto, who channeled his mastery of Scandinavian folk music into a series of dancelike melodies. There were visual projections, because these seem to be increasingly in vogue, but they added little to the experience.

The weekend’s concerts are dedicated to the memory of the lateSen. Dianne Feinstein, celebrated in remarks from the stage by cellist Barbara Bogatin as a “strong advocate for musicians, for unions and for empowering women.” That’s a terrific trifecta.

Reach Joshua Kosman:jkosman@sfchronicle.com