If you only know Nathalie Stutzmann from her long and esteemed career as a contralto — one that has produced an extensive discography and countless vocal appearances — then you grasp just a portion of what she’s capable of. Over the past decade or so, Stutzmann has also emerged as a conductor of real distinction, and on Thursday, May 26, she used her debut appearance with the San Francisco Symphony to demonstrate why.

Leading the orchestra and the Symphony Chorus in a sumptuous program of music by Brahms and Tchaikovsky in Davies Symphony Hall, the French artist infused everything she touched with a thrilling combination of emotional intimacy and dramatic power.

The performers made a forceful, clean-grained sound when that was appropriate, then hushed to a whisper as if to imply rather than state outright what needed to be conveyed. Melodies emerged in a gently sinuous ripple; rhythms landed with crisp but easy precision. Everything was shaped with an eye to both large-scale formal dimensions and the most intimately drawn detail. It was a splendid display of artistry.

Stutzmann is about to take up a new position as music director of the Atlanta Symphony (becoming just the second woman to lead a major American orchestra, following Marin Alsop in Baltimore), and one can only envy Georgia’s music lovers.

There’s a temptation to hear Stutzmann’s conducting through the filter of her singing career, and it’s one that needs to be treated with extreme skepticism. Do the specific virtues of Thursday’s performance — in particular, the elegant fluidity Stutzmann brought to the entire affair — owe anything to a vocal sensibility?

Perhaps, but probably not. More to the point is that she approaches the repertoire of the late 19th century with an emphasis on expressive clarity, building phrase upon phrase into a sturdy edifice that proves irresistible.

That much was immediately in evidence during the first half of the program, devoted to three of Brahms’ major choral works. “Nänie,” “Gesang der Parzen” (“Song of the Fates”) and “Schicksalslied” (“Song of Destiny”) are more known about than known — the Symphony last performed them together in 1989, under Conductor Laureate Herbert Blomstedt — but they offer a tremendous entree into the composer’s sound world.

The works are all built on mighty, potentially daunting German poetry (by Schiller, Goethe and Hölderlin, respectively), and each in its own way mines that material for philosophical riches. The mournful “Nänie,” which comes right out of the gate with the emo-sounding line “Even the beautiful must die,” traffics in radiance and grace; “Song of the Fates,” with its more blunt and blocky textures, draws to darkly hushed conclusion.

“Song of Destiny,” though, is the crown jewel of this collection, marked by impossibly gorgeous melodic material and surging forward on the characteristic 2-against-3 rhythms that Brahms relied on at nearly every opportunity.

The Symphony Chorus remains leaderless since former director Ragnar Bohlin’s resignation in August, and on this occasion it was superbly led by Valérie Saint-Agathe, best known in these parts as the artistic director of the San Francisco Girls Chorus. Massed harmonies rang out with unruffled power, and at every juncture — most memorably at the midpoint of “Schicksalslied” — the singers sustained long chords and phrases without sagging or showing signs of strain.

After intermission, Stutzmann led a richly eloquent account of Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” Symphony, one that reflected the music’s unusual emotional cast without ever descending into sentimentality. The first movement proceeded with a combination of strength and indirection — the luscious second theme, in particular, seemed to melt off the bone — and there was plenty of sparkle in the waltz-like second movement, with its five-beat meter.

But, as is so often the case, it was the one-two punch of the final movements that gave the symphony its deepest grandeur, moving from the explosive and increasingly manic march into a final fade that seems to erase all that’s come before. Stutzmann shaped the sequence perfectly, leaving the audience with a sense of eager anticipation for her quick return.

San Francisco Symphony: 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, May 27 -28. $35-$125. Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave., S.F. 415-864-6000. www.sfsymphony.org

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