The ingeniously designed program began with a bang — the first four loud, arresting tones of Beethoven's overture to King Stephen — a play for which he wrote incidental music. What did those solitary tones mean, and where were they going? They segued immediately into a jolly Hungarian tune, and the overture continued, as overtures will, with a variety of themes related to the play for which it was written. It even included a lively little bit of the "Ode to Joy." Two centuries later, the music stands up well as a musical narrative, even though the play is no longer in production and the audience has to have its own ideas about what is going on.

Bruce Lamott's Philharmonia Chorale was on stage for the next two pieces. Mezzo-soprano Mary Phillips took her place beside the chorus for Beethoven's Opferlied (Song of Offering), a setting of a poem by Friedrich von Matthisson. Beethoven, child of the Enlightenment, was drawn not only to Schiller's Ode to Joy, but also to Matthisson's poetry. Opferlied describes a ritual exalting ideals of freedom, beauty, and oneness with the earth. The soloist leads a verse — the first accompanied by winds and the second by a solo cello — and the chorus, strings added, echoes each verse. Phillips, standing with the chorus at the back of the orchestra, sounded far away. Her voice, though beautiful, began with a vibrato so wide as to suggest pushing in the large hall, but she soon got it under control. Tanya Tomkins was the highly expressive cellist.

A North American premiere was then given to Carl August Cannabich's tombeau for Mozart, Mozarts Gedächtnis Feyer (Mozart's Memorial Celebration). The solo quartet — soprano Lynne Dawson, Phillips, tenor Iain Paton, and bass-baritone Andrew Foster Williams — also placed behind the orchestra with the chorus, could be easily heard but again sounded far away, with the exception of Paton's clarion tenor. Dawson sang recitative-like passages with strong feeling. Her diction was exceptionally clear, a distinction rare for a soprano. Foster-Williams gave eloquent voice to Cannabich's feelings about the torrent of Mozart's music, his demise, and his lasting effect on people's hearts. The chorus sang with a sweetness of sound suited to both Mozart and Cannabich, especially in the lovely refrain, shared with the solo quartet, "Ewig, ewig" (His flame shall blaze forever in the Muses' hallowed shrine). Cannabich's music was entirely worthy of its subject. In no way did it suffer by comparison with the bits of Mozart's music which he occasionally, and appropriately, quoted.

Having been well prepared for the expressive power of Beethoven's inventive genius in the Ninth Symphony, the audience returned after intermission to see a large chorus ranged behind the orchestra: the Philharmonia Chorale joined by Magen Solomon's San Francisco Choral Artists and Marika Kuzma's UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus.

William Meredith's excellent program notes were especially helpful in calling attention to one of Beethoven's sketches for the symphony, which demonstrates the connections between the first three movements and the last, choral movement. The first movement, beginning quietly and growing into a tremendous crescendo, returned repeatedly to that crescendo. The movement has been described as tragic or despairing. To me it sounded more like Dylan Thomas' rage or Matthew Arnold's armies clashing by night. It never let up. McGegan carefully calibrated balances, the strings now playing out, now pulling back to accompany the winds, adjusting both dynamics and vibrato to the moment and giving clarity to all the voices.

The second movement, a scherzo played with wonderful rhythmic definition, danced as only Philharmonia and McGegan can dance. The dance was urgent, savage, relentless. Subtle transitions in meter, brief timpani interjections egging on the movement, brilliant triplet figuration passing from section to section — all conspired to leave the listener in awe of Beethoven's fertile imagination and Philharmonia's fearless execution of every new turn his music took. Nowhere in this performance did one have the feeling one sometimes has that Beethoven didn't know when to stop. Even the repetition of big chunks of the scherzo was a delight.

The third movement, adagio, was heartfelt, swelling from soft to loud and back again, and featuring snatches of melody passing among the winds. In this movement particularly, Beethoven has the strings alternating between bowed melodies and pizzicato accompaniments, and in this performance, inner parts emerged and went back into the ensemble organically.

The last movement begins with a stroke of genius: wordless recitative in the orchestra, interspersed with fragments from each of the preceding movements, each rejected in turn by the instrumental recitative. Then the "Ode to Joy" starts pianissimo in the basses and cellos, phrases ending in little crescendi, then the violas and the second violins in countermelodies, and the first violins and the winds joining the melody. Finally, in this performance Andrew Foster-Williams jumped up and proclaimed, "Not these tunes, this tune," and swung into the "Ode to Joy." It was a riveting performance; he was absolutely transported. The chorus joined in the enthusiasm. The solo quartet, now out in front and increasingly abandoning diction for all-out volume, sang their hearts out, bass and tenor in particular looking eminently joyful.

After three verses, the contrabassoon sounded an indeterminate tone, the orchestra resolved it into a modulation, and Iain Paton hailed the sun, the heavens, and the heroic progress to joy. The men of the chorus, calling on all people to rejoice in the beauties of the natural world, shook the rafters. Choral injunctions to acknowledge the Creator ran the gamut from pianissimo to forte. The final repetition of the first verse, celebrating the joyful brotherhood of all mankind, started with the solo quartet and ended in a choral blaze of glory.

One note: On Saturday night, I went to the First Congregational Church of Berkeley to hear what the Philharmonia concert sounded like in that smaller space, with its lively acoustic. While both performances were exciting, on Saturday the audience was more completely enveloped in sound. And whereas on Friday a large number of people in the audience applauded each movement and even the entrance of the soloists, Saturday's audience — the sophisticated regulars — sat on their hands until the end. Both audiences jumped to their feet in standing ovations, richly deserved.