The 92nd season of the Portland Symphony Orchestra and the ninth year with Robert Moody as music director began with a concert at Merrill Auditorium on Oct. 9. In spite of the rain, the hall was mostly full, and those intrepid music lovers got their money’s worth.

Since concert goers are at least as patriotic as their sporting event compatriots, the concert began with a performance of the National Anthem, and I am pleased to relate that these knowledgeable people did not add an extra note on the word “banner,” nor did they break into applause at the end of the word “free.” (So there!)

The sole work performed on the first half of the concert was Symphony No. 4 by Beethoven.

Since this symphony falls between the monumental 3rd and 5th, it is not as frequently performed. That is a real shame, as it is a superb work in every respect – structural, orchestral, emotional and more.

Moody conducted it without baton and essentially by heart. No detail was unimportant. Attacks were consistently razor sharp, and the ensemble was clean, even in the lickety-split last movement. This orchestra is really his, and he felt free to conduct and mold phrases instead of simply beating time.

I did notice that on the first beat of a pattern, the orchestra came in on the rebound of the beat, rather than on the ictus or point of downbeat attack. This did not occur when the maestro used his baton as he did in the other works. There were many fine points worth mentioning, such as: the change in dynamics, real crescendi (really gradual change of volume), really musical slight ritards and superb solo in the winds, especially the clarinet solo in the second movement by Thomas Parchman. Not to be overlooked was the ever artistic and rhythmically accurate playing by John Tanzer on the kettledrums.

The celli and double basses deserve praise for the accurate account of the fast 16th notes in the last movement. I could go on, but everywhere I was on the lookout for musical happenings, I was rewarded with A-plus results. Bravo to conductor and instrumentalists alike… and also to Beethoven.

There were two works performed after intermission: a cello concerto by Mason Bates with Joshua Roman as soloist, followed by the “Pines of Rome” by Respighi.

With regard to the concerto, Roman has a prodigious technique, which he needed to play this piece, and a full-bodied lyrical tone. The first movement featured some rhythmic patterns in the orchestra against which the cello meandered about. Without warning (but just about time), the music suddenly stopped.

The only musical idea that I heard was the movement of the interval of a second above and later below. The second movement featured even more meanderings in the solo part, but with less of a racket in the orchestra, one could even hear the soloist clearly here.

In the third movement, there were a whole lot of really fast-moving notes in the solo part and a whole lot of 2nds in the orchestra. After a time, it ended. Moody and the PSO did their best to give a good reading of this concerto. Some folks even liked it; I was not among them.

The concluding work was a version of a full-employment practices for musicians, namely Resplighi’s “Pines of Rome,” which is a kind of musical character study of four different areas of Rome allied with events that took place there. I recall a performance of this work in the mid-1960s, and mentally compared it to this one.

By contrast, today’s PSO can be likened to a fine major league club in contrast to the earlier one, in every respect. Moody did one fine job of conducting. (He wanted about 40 more violins at the end, but that’s another story.)

The solo wind playing was superb, as was the English horn of Julianne Verret, the trumpets led by Joseph Foley, the horns by John Boden, the trombones by Nicholas Orovich, the percussion, extra brass in the balcony, the recorded (noisy) birds, and yes, the full complement of strings led by concertmaster Charles Dimick, all of which contributed to one really musical listening experience of this 20th-century masterpiece. It really doesn’t get much better than this.

This concert will be broadcast on Oct. 26 on the Maine Public Broadcasting Network

— Morton Gold is a composer/ conductor, retired educator and an arts reviewer for the Journal Tribune.