Beethoven concert brisk, enjoyable.

Byline: Concert review by Peter Bergquist For The Register-Guard

THURSDAY NIGHT at the Hult Center, the Eugene Symphony presented another installment of Giancarlo Guerrero's Ludwig van Beethoven cycle. Guerrero plans to lead the orchestra in all nine Beethoven symphonies during this season and next.

This concert presented the Eighth and Third (``Eroica'') symphonies in fresh and exciting performances.

To open the concert, Guerrero led the orchestra in the Rakoczy March from ``The Damnation of Faust'' by Hector Berlioz. This brilliant setting of a Hungarian national tune is often played as a concert piece, and the orchestra and Guerrero gave it a spirited reading.

I'm not sure how well it worked as a prelude to this concert, even though Berlioz was an ardent admirer of Beethoven.

Berlioz wrote for an even larger and louder orchestra than Beethoven's, and the contrast between the two might have seemed jarring. It was also odd to have more than a dozen wind and percussion players leave the stage for good after one five-minute piece.

The main business of the evening was beautifully attended to. Beethoven's Eighth is more relaxed than those that immediately precede and follow it. In some ways it looks back to F.J. Haydn and W.A. Mozart, but it is unmistakably mature Beethoven. The composer was in a playful, sometimes joking mood in the Eighth; every movement has a twist or surprise.

The first movement may be the most straightforward, though Beethoven plays with meter and accent. The performance clearly brought out these aspects of the score. Guerrero chose a brisk tempo, as he did throughout the evening. The orchestra responded with precision and enthusiasm.

The second movement, rather than being an intense lament or hymn, jogs along with a metronomic tick-tock accompaniment. Beethoven in fact did associate the piece with Johann Malzel, a friend who had just invented the metronome. It's one of Beethoven's most high-spirited slow movements. Guerrero and the orchestra did full justice to its good humor.

The third movement - in minuet tempo rather than a brisk scherzo - is perhaps the most traditional of the four. The trio section brought some delightful playing from the horns and clarinet.

The finale starts quietly and innocently but is soon interrupted by a loud "wrong" note, which is finally explained only in the long coda. It's the most vigorous, "Beethovenian" movement in the symphony. Guerrero and the orchestra made the most of it.

Guerrero's conception of the symphony is admirable. He moved it along briskly but let it breathe when needed. Contrasts came out sharply. Beethoven's humor was clearly conveyed.

The performance of the "Eroica" Symphony was no less satisfying.

The Third is a different kind of piece: large and serious. It was Beethoven's most important breakthrough to a more expressive style, at once personal and universal, coupled with a big expansion of form and technique. He originally dedicated the symphony to Napoleon Bonaparte, but then withdrew the dedication and called it simply "Heroic Symphony, to celebrate the memory of a great man."

Guerrero and the orchestra shifted gears deftly for this piece. His pacing was especially effective in the first movement. He took a fast tempo that brought out all the urgency in the music. Even with the repeat of the first section of the movement, it did not seem too long.

The Funeral March is one of Beethoven's most expressive slow movements. It starts with formal restraint but eventually breaks into a passionate outpouring of grief, expressed in part by one of Beethoven's most intense fugues.

The fullness and warmth of the string sections in this movement were remarkable. They have always had this potential, but the new shell in Silva Hall now allows us to hear it completely. The rest of the orchestra also rose to the occasion in a stirring performance.

After the hero is dead and buried, the symphony continues with two less intense but no less expansive movements. The scherzo really took wings, with the trio again featuring the horns.

The finale is an unusual combination of variations and fugue, vigorous and lively until the end, when the tempo relaxes for a few variations that perhaps recall the funeral march in a more optimistic light.

The orchestra was in fine form through the entire evening. It played with great accuracy and good balance under Guerrero's guidance. Solo passages were always performed deftly and with elan.

Guerrero's Beethoven performances continue to be stimulating. His brisk tempos are much more satisfactory than the ponderous dragging out we sometimes hear. He performs from the best new editions, and he seems to agree with much of what recent research has shown about performance practice in Beethoven's time.

It's a happy combination of good musicianship and scholarship, and the Beethoven performances to come should be no less enjoyable.

Peter Bergquist is professor emeritus at the University of Oregon School of Music.