Friday night was a time for Central European treasures at a San Antonio Symphony Classics Series concert.

W.A. Mozart, Bedrich Smetana, Leon Janácek and Antonín Dvorák all have better-known pieces than the ones on the program, but the selections brimmed with melody and fanciful imagery for an audience of about 1,100 people at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts.

The centerpiece came from Mozart, his Concerto for Flute and Harp. The orchestra’s own flute principal, Martha Long, and harp principal, Rachel Ferris, were featured soloists.

Long’s purity on flute flowed with airy beauty, while Ferris accompanied with poetic, other worldliness.

After the spunky first movement, the duo moved on to one of Mozart’s genius middle movements. Composed in Paris, the andantino could be imagined as a couple in love as they stroll along the Seine at sunset.

The soloists’ interplay with the chamber-sized orchestra was flawless. Sadly, Long, who came to the San Antonio Symphony in 2012, will leave at the end of the season, having won an audition with the Oregon Symphony. The rest of the program was all Czech. The concert began with Smetana’s “Sárka,” the third in a series of tone poems from the composer’s famous Má vlast.

The piece tells the story of enraged betrayed woman who seeks revenge. The music presented anger, a march and a slowing to a literal snore from a bassoon. Then before all heck breaks loose.

Under guest conductor Jacques Lacombe, a Quebec native, the orchestra delivered precise, ardent phrasing. Lacombe was at his best in Janácek’s Suite from “The Cunning Little Vixen,” a Disney-style fantasy tale about a young female fox, her capture and escape. The opera suite magically humanizes the natural world of animals and insects. A big moment soared when the music replicated a dream the fox has. The scene was intense and lyrical under Lacombe’s direction.

Lacombe, now with the New Jersey Symphony, soon moves to the Bonn Opera.

The concert concluded with circus-style fun jumping out of Dvorak’s Scherzo capriccioso, a fitting and joyous wrap-up for a nonstop journey of musical narratives.

The program repeats at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Tobin Center downtown.

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