It was Conlon's sincerity and mastery in controlling large forces effortlessly (so well demonstrated in the Verdi Requiem that's also part of the June Festival) that swept the audience along on the wings of religious romanticism in the current "Romantic Visions" festival. Having been marinated in and overdosed on Liszt in my formative years, at the — yes — Franz Liszt Academy, I for one was not quite swept away, but was nevertheless impressed with Conlon's dedication and his ability to make a good case for such a big, bathetic work.

Going counter to the festival's subtitle — "From Paradise to the Abyss" — Liszt's work goes "upward" as it sums up Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, written between 1308 and his death in 1321. The story is of a journey from the worst place in Hell (populated by the likes of Judas and Dante's enemies) to the higher plateau of Purgatory, leading to Heaven.

It doesn't really matter what Wagner stole (or borrowed) from Liszt or who was the nicer guy (no contest there), the fact is that Wagner, Debussy, the early Schoenberg, and many others — but not Respighi — developed and realized something clearly greater than did Liszt, even if he was way ahead of them chronologically in many ways.

While the Dante Symphony is rarely heard, this particular performance was a U.S. premiere in Conlon's realization of the ever-pioneering Liszt's idea of a "multimedia" presentation. A good half century before motion pictures, Liszt thought of showing pictures about the music's topic during the performance, and he had men drag Filippo Bigioli's "Divine Comedy" paintings across the stage.

First in Rotterdam 20 years ago, and now in San Francisco, Conlon fulfilled Liszt's idea by using projections of the Bigioli paintings, and of Bonaventura Genelli's drawings that Liszt tried — and failed — to present with the only audio-visual device of the day, the Laterna Magika.

To up the ante, Conlon also provided intertitles, so the affair turned into a veritable silent movie, text and pictures projected, the orchestra playing the "background music" or, rather, what has turned into that. Liszt is an outstanding soundtrack composer, perfect for TV commercials, but somehow the Dante Symphony deserves better — that is to say, less (distraction). Admittedly, this is a minority report; the audience loved it all.

The Inferno movement was true to the allegro frenetico marking, and Purgatorio unfolded well, but the best (or the worst, depending on your tolerance for the borderline mawkish) came in the Magnificat, the title changed from Paradiso when Wagner protested that no one (except for him, probably) could possibly write the music of paradise.

Hidden from view, the San Francisco Boys Chorus, Ragazzi, and Pacific Boychoir joined voices to provide the song of angels, as the music soared and stormed the heavens, becoming heaven itself, at least from the Lisztian perspective. An alternative ending (not used by Conlon) has fortissimo Hallelujahs that make Liszt easily the equal in volume to the Verdi and Berlioz requiems, Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, Boito's Mefistofele, even the sonic-assault finale of Kernis' Second Symphony and Jon Leifs' Hekla (with its 19 percussionists around the organ and full orchestra).

By sticking to the composer's own preference for the "heavenly pianissimo" ending, and through the overall excellence of the performance, Conlon avoided the climactic excesses of Dante, making it sound only ... well ... paradisiacal.