By Daniel Buckwalter
(#CommonManAtTheSymphony)

Grace and elegance met muscular idealism, and all of it came from the enormous creative space of one composer — Ludwig van Beethoven.

The Eugene Symphony Orchestra, with artistic director and conductor Alex Prior at the podium, celebrated the great man on Feb. 12 at Hult Center’s Silva Concert Hall with two selections that showcase the range of Beethoven’s repertoire, from soft fluidity to stark and triumphant text, all familiar comfort food on a winter’s night.

Both were a joy to listen to and a reminder of how transcendent Beethoven remains, more 200 years after each piece was composed.

With the magnificence of guest violinist Julian Rhee, Eugene Symphony opened the night in front of an appreciative audience with the three-movement Violin Concerto in D major.
To watch Rhee at work in front of an orchestra is to bear witness to understated refinement. There are no demonstrative movements to punctuate a phrase. He is rock-steady.

The sound from his violin, however, is smooth, enchanting, intricate and precise. There’s a conversational tone to his playing, it seems, and he, along with the orchestra, used that skill to bring the audience into the music. It was wonderful.

After the sublime of the concerto came the more jagged intensity of Beethoven’s four-movement Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major (Eroica), another well-known and often-played piece.

This is a male friendship-type of piece that honors the bonds of heroic rough rider sorts and their idealism, in this case with the French Revolution.

Indeed, Beethoven initially dedicated the piece to Napoleon Bonaparte — that is, until Bonaparte abandoned the ideals of the revolution and anointed himself emperor. It turned out to be a revolution for one.

That aside, Eroica, which premiered in 1871, is a treasure in Western music. Its beginning is grand, its momentum hurtling forward like a cannon ball. Then there’s the funeral march in the second movement, offering a moment of dignity and the possibility of renewal.

The zeal of sudden energy returns for the third movement, and the finale is a transformative affair that stirs the soul.

I was struck by Prior’s conducting of the final movement. He is always in tune with the music in front of him, but especially in the fourth movement, even Prior (who knows the text backward and forward) seemed stirred to the core.

It was, indeed, a powerful performance. And a reminder that we should celebrate Beethoven more often.