Having spent last season basking in the marketing godsend of “The Centennial Season,” the San Diego Symphony has yet to concoct a catchy slogan for the newly launched season at Copley Symphony Hall. So last year’s “Celebrate 100” is now “Celebrate 100 and Beyond.” Or, this year’s new Detroit model has an extra stripe of chrome on the side.

Fortunately, Music Director Jahja Ling crafted a season-opening concert that was able to pack a musical punch without the benefit of advertising luster. His canny selection of the dashing French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet—playing both of the Maurice Ravel Piano Concertos—followed by Ottorino Respighi’s flamboyant “Feste Romane” made a highly satisfying inaugural combination.

An indulgence for those patrons who crave total sonic immersion, “Feste Romane” (Roman Festivals) calls for the orchestra to play at full force much of the time, and “full” included no fewer than nine percussionists, a sea of extra brass players (some ensconced high up in the balcony), harp, organ, and mandolin. Yet there was nothing indulgent about Ling’s clear, insightful shaping of this vibrant musical tapestry, and the ferocity of the orchestra’s brass-heavy fortes proved as thrilling as the quiet rustle of solemn pilgrims depicted in slender woodwind themes rippling over hushed string ostinatos.

Respighi jauntily shifts from the sacred inflection of an ancient Gregorian Easter chant (flutes and oboes) to a sentimental love ballad (hence the mandolin) to a Richard Strauss-worthy depiction of drunken revelers (what would we do without trombones?), all part of the Roman urbanscape both past and present. Kudos to Principal Horn Benjamin Jaber for his nuanced cadenza in the third section of “Feste Romane,” where his solo had the flexibility and sweet color of a deftly muted cornet.

Thibaudet’s blazing, definitive account of Ravel’s seldom-played “Piano Concerto in D Major for the Left Hand” brought out the composer’s horror of the carnage and human waste of the Great War, which is not a far-fetched interpretation given the origin of this odd concerto. Commissioned by the eminent Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm at the beginning of World War I and languished much of the war in a Siberian prisoner-of-war camp, this concerto was but one of many works the wealthy Wittgenstein requested from leading composers to reconstitute his performing career after the war.

It would be easy to dwell on Thibaudet’s technical wizardry in this demanding piece, where the left hand carouses up and down the entire keyboard at great speed to create a full, complex piano texture, but equally rewarding was the French pianist’s ease at coaxing a sumptuous melody with simultaneous subdued accompaniment, all with the same hand. Ling and the orchestra complemented his ardor with commendable sympathy and cogent ensemble.

I wish I could report that Thibaudet’s performance of the more familiar Ravel “Piano Concerto in G Major” was equally urgent and compelling. Although his approach to the serene, wistful middle movement verged on the incandescent, the two outer movements sounded more polished than heartfelt. Perhaps, as the leading French pianist of his generation, he is asked to play this Ravel concerto more often than he would choose to play it. Additionally, the orchestra did not sound not as unified as it might have to make this a truly accomplished rendition of the concerto.

Ling opened his program with Hector Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival Overture,” perhaps to balance thematically the “Feste Romane” in the second half. Early on I was impressed by the violins’ suave sonority in the lyrical sections, and by Andrea Overturf’s lush, throaty English Horn solos. Like a souffle taken from the oven too early, this colorful overture would have benefited from more time in the heat of the rehearsal hall.