Pace Mae West, sometimes too much of a good thing is just excess. Take December’s predictable performing arts franchises, for example: “The Nutcracker,” “A Christmas Carol” and “Messiah.” At one time these popular holiday offerings were as unavoidable in San Diego’s weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas as trendy coffee houses in a gay neighborhood.

But it appears that the shelf life of some of these staples has expired. Several seasons back, the San Diego Rep quietly brought to a close three decades of annual “Christmas Carol” productions, and this season Cygnet has advertised (promised?) their more recent holiday confection, a radio play version of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” is on the boards for the last time.

A survey of local “Messiah” concerts—aside from those brutal Sunday morning assults by understaffed church choirs—reveals only a couple of serious offerings, with an equal number of “Messiah” singalongs. Maybe that beloved oratorio is on its way to becoming just another app. The San Diego Symphony and San Diego Master Chorale have avoided “Messiah” for the last three seasons, and this past weekend (Dec. 9-11) they performed Beethoven’s Ninth "Choral" Symphony, which they also programmed in December, 2009. Last year in early December we were treated to Mahler’s profound Second Symphony for orchestra and chorus. Neither of these Beethoven or Mahler symphonies has any thematic connection to December's holiday celebrations, but each is a grand symphonic work with ample participation from chorus and soloists that draws a full house. The poinsettias decorating the Copley Hall stage provide the holiday theme.

Symphony Music Director Jahja Ling invited the respected American conductor John Nelson to lead this perusal of the Ninth, an account that proved exuberant and filled with attentive, even unexpected detail. Nelson served a significant tenure as Music Director of the Indianapolis Symphony, but his early podium habits were formed as a choral conductor, which is evident in his unorthodox conducting technique. Nelson eschews the baton, and extravagant arm-waving, aerobic movement on the podium, as well as vivid pantomiming of his ideas about the music only begin to sketch his method.

In the rippling Scherzo movement, for example, Nelson’s athletic verve clearly spurred the orchestra, but in calmer, more transparent sections, notably the string chords at the opening of the first movement in Saturday’s performance, a more precise, focused direction from the podium would have ensured a more cohesive response from the orchestra. Nelson stressed the composer’s fury and angst in the first movement, while cultivating sylvan repose and mystic longing in sections of the wide-ranging third movement. And every pyschic state between those extremes received its moment in the sun.

I liked Nelson's well-paced shaping of the last movement, allowing the instruments to savor the familiar themes the vocalists and chorus finally bring to such a stunning climax. The ardent vocal quartet was grounded in Richard Zellner’s stentorian baritone and capped by Heidi Grant Murphy’s gleaming soprano. Mezzo Suzanne Mentzer and tenor Robert Breault, who was the incisive tenor soloist in the Symphony’s 2009 performance of the Ninth, matched the strength if not the bright colors of the outer voices. With a more balanced and unified sound from the men’s and women’s sections than we sometimes hear, the Master Chorale added the requisite choral weight and definition to the finale. Having heard the San Francisco Symphony Chorus last month in a performance of the Brahms "German Requiem," I would suggest that an infusion of well-trained younger singers in the soprano section would enrich and strengthen that section’s higher registers.

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