No other concerto, for any instrument, comes so close to perfection as Dvorak’s Cello Concerto. Here, Dvorak wove the musical and spiritual experience of a lifetime into one grand tapestry; the sheer quality and beauty of the melodic material, the command of structure and form (including the masterful departure from expectations in the quiet, ruminative coda), the profundity of meaning—all combined with a solo part that shows off the virtuosity of the performer without any empty sparkle—can make a performance of this late nineteenth-century masterpiece as moving an experience as can be had in the concert hall.

Which was the case Friday night, when cellist Daniel Mueller-Schott and guest conductor Giancarlo Guerrero joined the Fort Worth Symphony at Bass Performance Hall. Though his website is loaded with references to his brilliance, Mueller-Schott here played with a lean, no-nonsense tone and manner that made the music, rather than the performer, the spotlight—which, in turn, ultimately spotlights the obvious intellect and control of the performer. Rather than having a sense of having heard an impressive performer exploiting a showpiece, one came away from the concert with the sense of having heard a great work of art brought to life by a devoted interpreter.

Mueller-Schott, Bavarian by birth and choice, obviously understands that, in this piece, the moments of introspection and serenity are not merely interludes between the grand opportunities to show off and raise goose bumps; in this piece—and this is the key to the work’s greatness—the big, thrilling bits, of which there are plenty, are the pillars that support the quieter, radiant moments.

Conductor Guerrero, a native of Central America who earned a degree in percussion from Baylor and who is now in his first season as music director of the Nashville Symphony, clearly supported Mueller-Schott’s outlook, which in turn blended well with the orchestra’s tendency toward a lean, consistent sound.

The evening had opened with the Overture to Mozart’s Don Giovanni, in a competent, workaday performance that did little to indicate the beautiful moments ahead, and apparently mostly functioned as a sort of intellectual tie-in with the second work on the evening, Richard Strauss’ tone poem Don Juan. This twin salute to the world’s most famous sex addict—well, to music inspired by the world’s most famous sex addict—was clever, but needed a little more substance from the conductor to make it work. Ultimately, the resemblance of the Dvorak to the Strauss—both composed in the waning years of the nineteenth century—was considerably more striking, in this performance, than the more obvious link of subject matter between the Mozart and the Strauss.

As is the current practice, the Fort Worth Symphony presented a shortened version of the weekend’s classical concerts on Friday night; concert goers on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon will hear Liszt’s showy Les Preludes in addition to the works performed Friday night.