Staatskapelle Dresden, at Carnegie Hall Staatskapelle Dresden Christian Thielemann leading the orchestra in Bruckner's Symphony No. 8 on Friday evening at Carnegie Hall. The Staatskapelle Dresden, which played at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday and Friday evenings, is an orchestra with a great history and reputation, but it has never appeared in the United States often enough to become really familiar here. That may change, now that it is led by the German maestro of the moment, Christian Thielemann, who became its principal conductor a year ago. Mr. Thielemann and the orchestra seem intent on establishing a greater international presence, having taken over the Salzburg Easter Festival in Austria last month after Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic abandoned it for a festival in Baden-Baden, Germany. Some orchestras impress with the qualities of their individual sections: a particular sheen or warmth from the strings; the mellowness or piquancy of the woodwinds; the power or golden tone of the brasses. On the basis of limited exposure, at least, that is not so much true of the Staatskapelle: its sound seems all of a piece, not easily picked apart. Not that any of its individual sections are in any way deficient or that overall virtuosity is lacking. But blend seems to be the higher goal, and it is complete, if ultimately a bit colorless. Wednesday's program of Brahms - the "Academic Festival" Overture, the Violin Concerto and the Fourth Symphony - was fully satisfying. Lisa Batiashvili, the excellent soloist in the concerto, played with refined tone and lively temperament and offered a nice surprise, replacing the usual cadenza by Brahms's friend Joseph Joachim with one by Ferruccio Busoni, complete with timpani accompaniment. Mr. Thielemann and the orchestra offered a surprise of their own as an encore. Where you might have expected, say, a Brahms Hungarian Dance to carry through the theme, the orchestra let loose with the resplendent Prelude to Act III of "Lohengrin," by Wagner, a Brahms antagonist and a Thielemann specialty. Friday's program was devoted entirely to Bruckner's mighty Eighth Symphony. It is huge - some 80 minutes - but it does not necessarily feel long in all of its parts. Indeed, the first movement seemed positively short here, in Mr. Thielemann's straightforward yet compelling reading. Mr. Thielemann intruded a bit more in the Scherzo with pullbacks in dynamics that were sharper than usual and perhaps a touch showy. More fascinating was his approach to the final chord, where most conductors nowadays emulate the practice that Georg Solti perfected (and later turned into caricature): blasting the brasses, then clipping them short to let their sound reverberate in the rafters. Mr. Thielemann instead held the brasses in restraint and spread the sound as with a butter knife, to lovely effect. The Adagio seemed plenty long, with Mr. Thielemann stressing and stretching Bruckner's agonized harmonic searchings to the full. Here, too, the ending was particularly beautiful, the repeated downward curls of melody resembling nothing so much as pats and strokes of consolation. The problem with the Bruckner editions - between his own revisions and those of friends and colleagues, what did he finally want? - is perhaps most acute in the Eighth Symphony. Mr. Thielemann, like many today, used the 1939 version by Robert Haas, which, according to the booklet notes, "purports to be Bruckner's authentic text." The matter is by no means so simple; for starters, Haas has added bits of melody of his own. But none of this need detain nonmusicologists, and a good performance will sweep all before it, as this one did. The audience responded with a long, hearty ovation. The Staatskapelle dedicated the concerts to the memory of the great English maestro Colin Davis, its honorary conductor, who died on April 14 at 85.