The Benjamania at the SFS is extending through Jan. 17, with various compositions, plus the man himself conducting the final week.

            Almost everything went wrong with the G.B. concert opening here at Flint Center on Jan. 7. The much-advertised “Jubilation” selection, to feature some 22 recorders blown by youth, had exactly zero recorders, with the roles taken over by an array of professional piccolo players.

            The hall was at best 20 percent full, with perhaps 400 patrons in the vast auditorium. (Not the fault of Benjamin---the South Bay has over the years shown very conservative symphonic tastes, with a strong contingent of senior citizens in attendance usually happier with Bach, Beethoven and Brahms than with, say, Bartók, Britten, Boulez and Benjamin.)

And an orchestration of Debussy piano pieces, “Three Etudes,” fell flatter than an overage  soufflé, lacking any real flamboyance or impulse.

            But fortunately, Benjamin is versatile and adaptable, both in music and in action. And he gutted it out, was prodded to come on stage,  and then graciously took bows after his music. And unlike most composers featured prior to intermission, Benjamin also stayed around to hear the old-line symphony that followed. Evidently, he is also a music-lover!!

            “Jubilation” was written for a youth orchestra with chorus. It’s an understated, wispy invention that tickles the ear with its soft, high-treble sounds well before the chorus gets into the act. The work reflects both the colorist side of the composer as well as his roots studying in France. And it all becomes beautifully assertive when the group of some 40 pre-high-school voices from the extraordinary Crowden (music) School in Berkeley sound out their solfège, booming out magnificently over Flint Center---loud, clear, and on pitch in a way I never thought possible.

            Benjamin’s ties to Parisian forerunners like Debussy, Berlioz and early Stravinsky were obvious in his other piece, “Dance Figures,” an episodic work of fine-spun delicacy---until, that is, the percussion section sounded a loud enough fire-bell to suggest that yet another earthquake had struck. Overall, this multi-section opus shows prime tone-painting skills, sometimes with a fog of indistinct tonalities and murky enigmas.

            The returnee guest conductor David Robertson led the S.F. Symphony in the Benjamin works with evident relish, though he could not light the fire under the Debussy. My main bone of contention was that none of the three pieces were in their original form; transcriptions are a chancey flight in the concert hall, especially when flying in flocks.

            The concert closed with the “Scottish” Symphony (No. 3) by Mendelssohn,  who by now would have been 200 years old. As the season goes on, expect further bicentennial concert tributes to Chopin and Schumann, both of them born in 1810.

         These San Francisco Symphony concerts continue through Dec. 3 at 8 p.m. For info: (415) 864-6000, or go  online. Broadcasts on KDFC-FM (102.1) at 8 p.m. on the second Tuesday following.