STOCKTON - Any good piece of music should be novel in its own way, even if in outline it clearly belongs to a recognizable set of musical conventions and expectations. And while a sense of novel individuality may contribute a large part to a piece's reception, there's a big difference between a novelty and a stunt.

The Stockton Symphony continued its features series Thursday evening at Atherton Auditorium with a pleasant program comprised of four novel works from a variety of musical aesthetics. The program repeats tonight.

Presenting four rather disparate works in one concert allows for multiple readings of how they fit together. The first half of the concert, for example, began with the brass and percussion sections performing Joan Tower's "Fanfare No. 1 for the Uncommon Woman" followed by the strings performing Dvorak's "Serenade for Strings."

Tower's 1986 work, novel for its musical connection with Aaron Copland's famous fanfare of 1942, uses the brass more intricately than does Copland, as the trumpets weaved together a densely layered sonic texture. Well played by the sections, it's a rarely heard piece whose only major drawback is its too-short length.

Functioning as the concert's main symphonic work, Dvorak's serenade immediately places the audience in a familiar later-19th century orchestral sound. However, within its lush lyricism lies only a very large string quartet with an extra bass section. Indeed, the piece's five movements feature the kind of melodic interplay found in quartets, but with a mixed result.

At times, such as in the first and fifth movements, the symphony brought out a delightful elegance as the orchestra passed melodies from section to section. In other movements though, such as the second, the lack of contrasting instrumentation caused a bit of monotony.

The symphony was in excellent form in the work's slower fourth movement. Here, conductor Peter Jaffe's efforts at shaping the dynamics and tempos was repaid with an ensemble attentiveness that continued all the way through the perfect diminuendo that closed the movement.

Douglas Hunt's performance of Vaughan Williams' "Bass Tuba Concerto in F minor," a short piece that's novel for featuring the tuba, brought things back into the 20th century following intermission.

In an accomplished and confident performance of this rarely heard work, Hunt, a modest and humble tubaist, clearly appreciated the opportunity to display the capabilities of the tuba. His performance of the second movement captured its lyrical spirit especially well, and he maintained an agile grace in the outer movements despite having to fight against an orchestra that too easily got things out of balance.

The symphony closed the concert with the crowd-pleasing bang of Rimsky-Korsakov's "Capriccio espagnol," written less than 10 years after Dvorak's "Serenade." While it returned us to the musical language of the earlier work, the Capriccio strikes its own novel path in its emphasis on solo instruments within an orchestral soundscape.

The symphony's lively and nuanced presentation also benefited from engaging performances by Johanna Borenstein on flute and Erin Finkelstein on clarinet.

Contact Glenn Pillsbury at features@recordnet.com.