The NSO serves up a two-course tour de force at the Kennedy Center

On Thursday night at the Kennedy Center, the National Symphony Orchestra demonstrated that you don’t need carols to channel holiday spirit. You just need bright guests and big portions.

So accustomed have concertgoers become to the usual three-course, prix fixe programs that our stomachs may rumble at any disruption to the cadence. But the nearly full concert hall on Thursday sounded more than satisfied with the evening’s meat and potatoes: Led by Finnish conductor Dima Slobodeniouk and joined by pianist Yefim Bronfman, the NSO delivered piping hot accounts of Brahms’s formidable 1881 “Piano Concerto No. 2″ and Tchaikovsky’s 1878 “Symphony No. 4.” It was the kind of concert you roll home from.