In playing a program of Vivaldi, Berlioz and Stravinsky, the Utah crew "was an orchestra that seemed to go from strength to strength," Rachleff said. "They were wonderful to be with, both in artistic temperament, but also in their openness to make music. And they seemed full of such good spirit."

Rachleff's prompt return engagement during a season when each guest conductor is considered a potential candidate for the music directorship signals that Utah Symphony players and administrators liked him, too.

But like several other guest conductors of the past season, he is guarded in his comments about the job that will open when Keith Lockhart steps down next May.

"I'm most interested in coming back to this beautiful city and working again with the orchestra," Rachleff said when asked about the position. "I try not to predict too far into the future. I'm just honored to come back and make music."

To that end, Rachleff is preparing a musical smorgasbord for this weekend's concerts that contrasts the dramatic emotion of Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 off the cool classicism of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, written in 1797 when the composer was 27. The spicy Spanish appetizer course is Manuel de Falla's "Three-Cornered Hat" Suite No. 2.

Rachleff considers Prokofiev's World War II-era symphony "a real virtuosic tour-de-force for the orchestra" with a wide range of dramatic and emotional values. "There are times I figure it's supposed to be so loud you almost have to put your hands over your ears," he said. "But Prokofiev is careful to balance that with other, gentler moments that really leave the audience breathless."

In contrast, the early Beethoven piano concerto whisks listeners to Vienna's golden age. It was a time when the dazzling impromptu cadenzas of Mozart, who died in 1791, lived on in the memories of the concertgoing public.

Rachleff said that based on experiences performing Mozart concertos with Robert Levin, "he is the answer" - a pianist singularly well-equipped to capture the essence of circa-1800 performances.

"It's Mozart reincarnated when you do Mozart concerti with [Levin]," Rachleff said. And the conductor has no doubt that Levin also will reincarnate the young Beethoven, who sought to capture Mozart's audience with his early works.

Though a pianist first and foremost, Levin is a revered Mozart scholar who possesses a gift rare among today's concert pianists: the ability improvise elaborate piano cadenzas before an audience, just as Mozart and Beethoven did.

That skill is put to use at a point of extreme musical tension in a classical piano concerto's first movement. At a crucial moment, the orchestra drops out, leaving the pianist to play the cadenza, a showy solo passage. The sense of emotional conflict heightens throughout the solo, until the orchestra jumps back into the fray, resolving the tension by restating the original theme in its original key.

Most concert artists perform Beethoven and Mozart concertos using written-out cadenzas, but those cadenzas were notated by the composers for the use of their students, not themselves, Levin said. Audiences expected experienced performers to make up cadenzas on the spot, to show they could think on their feet.

And that's how Levin approaches the cadenzas before an audience. "I play it off the cuff, without the slightest preparation of any kind," he said. "The possibility of a real train-wreck is there at every second. When one comes out alive on the far end of it, there is always the sense of being in a Hollywood thriller. You've thwarted all of the odds and somehow have not been gunned downed by the enemies - and there is the orchestra coming in. The point is that people will come and hear a rendition that is different from any other performance."

Although Levin finds many similarities between Mozart's music and the early compositions of Beethoven, he finds that Beethoven's bold musical personality asserts itself even in his youthful strivings to imitate Mozart's elegance and wit. "There is something about Beethoven's temperament which is always restless and explosive," he said. "When Beethoven laughs, the china rattles in the cupboards."

Levin is pleased to be collaborating for this weekend's concerts with Rachleff, whom he characterizes as "a profound musician and a deep-feeling human being."

"He is not someone who is merely a show-stopping, swashbuckling, charismatic conductor of the Tinseltown genre," Levin said. "He's the real thing. Certainly the Utah Symphony should look at Larry long and hard. Because the longer and harder they look, the more they are likely to like what they see and hear."

Rachleff and Levin

* LARRY RACHLEFF conducts the Utah Symphony, with pianist Robert Levin, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. in Abravanel Hall, 123 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City.

* TICKETS ARE $12 to $48, with discounts for subscribers, students and groups. Call 801-533-NOTE or visit www.utahsymphony.org.

Meet Larry Rachleff

Age: Rachleff says he is "a young man."

Nationality: American

Career: Rachleff is music director of Texas' San Antonio Symphony, which announced in 2006 that it would not renew his contract after the 2007-08 season. Articles in the San Antonio Express-News quoted San Antonio Symphony president and CEO David Green saying that orchestra management was displeased Rachleff hadn't moved to San Antonio from his home in Houston, 197 miles away. Musicians of the orchestra supported Rachleff in the controversy and lauded his musicianship.

Also: Rachleff is also music director of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, conductor and music professor at the Shepherd School of Music at Houston's Rice University and music director of the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra, which comprises members of the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra.

Family: Rachleff is married to soprano Susan Lorette Dunn; they have a young son, Sammy.

Interests: Rachleff is noted as an enthusiastic advocate of public school music education and an expert mentor of developing musicians, including several present members of the Utah Symphony.