Past and present shared the stage at Merrill Auditorium on Sunday when former Portland Symphony Orchestra musical directors Robert Moody (2008-2018), left, Toshiyuki Shimada (1986-2006) and Bruce Hangen (1976-1986) joined with current Music Director Eckart Preu (2019-present) to mark the 100th anniversary of the PSO. Each of them conducted one movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

Famed pianist/conductor Daniel Barenboim recently wrote that “The classical music world loves anniversaries.” If that’s so, the Portland Symphony Orchestra has doubled its pleasure by opening the orchestra’s 100th season with a celebration of the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s monumental Ninth Symphony before a packed house Sunday afternoon at Merrill Auditorium in Portland.

The participation of the ChoralArt Masterworks singers and the Una Voce Chamber Choir, as well as several featured soloists, made it an even grander celebration.

The PSO has been around long enough to have a long list of past musical directors. To celebrate the orchestra’s centenary, three of them were invited back to join with current director Eckart Preu in conducting the hallowed Ninth. The question of whether imposing multiple conducting personalities on a single performance of a singular work was, for the most part, subsumed under the rationale of it being a special occasion. It went well, with many stirring moments.

After jovial introductions, each conductor took a moment to describe the movement they were about to lead. Noting its strong character, Bruce Hangen, who directed the PSO from 1976-’86, mounted the podium for the stormy first movement. The power of the music, emerging gradually then quickly to present a remarkably artful intensity, reminded that this was full force Beethoven of the sort that can push a listener back in their seats. Hangen managed the musical outpouring well.

Toshiyuki Shimada, PSO musical director from 1986-2006, conducted the second movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Photo by Sarah McCullough

Toshiyuki Shimada, director from 1986-2006, leaned into the somewhat lighter complexities of the well-known second movement. At one point, Shimada seemed to want to reach across the stage to encourage a hard hit on the tympani. Always a treat for those less inclined toward the elevated reputation of the Ninth overall, this movement and Shimada charged along impressively.

Robert Moody, director from 2008-’18, led the lyrical third movement in a performance that uplifted on its own peaceful terms. The graceful moments it provided served the afternoon performance well.

Current director Eckart Preu (since 2019) welcomed vocalists Felicia Moore, Andrea Graichen, Eric Ferring and Kevin Deas along with the dozens of fully engaged singers to the forefront for the penultimate fourth movement. It was an invigorating and penetrating performance that had the conductor supremely animated in bringing the exalted symphony and the PSO spiritedly into a new century of their existence.

The audience at a packed Merrill Auditorium takes in the Portland Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Beethoven’s Ninth symphony. Photo by Sarah McCullough

The afternoon opened with a performance of contemporary composer Anna Clyne’s “Quarter Days,” a piece rooted in an examination of seasonal and musical changes in our concept of time. T.S Eliot’s poetic ruminations on the subject were apparently an inspiration for Clyne.

The brief work featured PSO principals Charles Dimmick and Sarah Atwood (violins), Cara Pogossian (viola) and Brent Selby (cello) and orchestra members in episodes that mixed and (sometimes uneasily) matched modern and more traditional approaches in a patchwork that sought to suggest the complex, changing/unchanging experience of now.

Steve Feeney is a freelance writer who lives in Portland.