Music review

All Beethoven

The Handel and Haydn Society Period Instrument Orchestra conducted by Richard Egarr. At: Symphony Hall, Friday Feb. 26. Remaining performance: Feb. 28. Tickets: $27-$94. 617-266-3605, www.handelandhaydn.org

On Dec. 22, 1808, Vienna was treated to a four-hour concert that included the premieres of Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies and the public premiere of his Fourth Piano Concerto, as well as the concert aria “Ah! perfido,’’ his Choral Fantasia, and movements from his Mass in C. The bill for the Handel and Haydn Society’s “All Beethoven’’ concerts is more modest: just the Fourth Piano Concerto and the Sixth Symphony, the “Pastoral.’’ (There’s also an enjoyable appetizer, Handel and Haydn’s Collaborative Youth Concert Choruses, under Andrew Clark, performing “How Excellent Thy Name,’’ from Handel’s oratorio “Saul.’’) But at Symphony Hall Friday, conductor Richard Egarr and soloist Robert Levin took us back to Beethoven’s time, not just by performing on period instruments but by adhering to period practice.

In Levin’s case, that meant not just playing his own cadenzas but improvising them on the spot, and also improvising a keyboard accompaniment to the orchestral sections. His fortepiano was a 1990s replica of an 1805 model with an una corda pedal that allows the performer to adjust the tone in a way that’s not possible on a modern instrument. Levin put this feature to good use in the 72-measure Andante, where the orchestra barks and the piano, quiet throughout, gradually calms it. The contrast between the two forces was salient, though the solo part could have had more emotional weight.

That was true of the performance as a whole. The last time I heard Levin play the Fourth was 2001, with Seiji Ozawa and the BSO, on a contemporary piano. This was very different: small-scaled, rhythmically pointed, with cascades of crystalline notes, full of poetry. Levin’s first-movement cadenza, packed into two minutes, treated both themes in a variety of moods. Egarr’s accompaniment was colorful without ever covering his soloist.

The “Pastoral’’ was everything a period-instrument performance should be. It went at a good clip, in accordance with Beethoven’s metronome marks, but sounding exuberant not rushed. Egarr shaped each movement with texture, dynamics, and discreet paragraphing. The winds were superb throughout, particularly in the songs of nightingale (flute), quail (oboe), and cuckoo (clarinet) at the end of the “Scene by the brook.’’ The peasant dance was a rowdy party; the thunderstorm was, for once, actually scary; the trumpets gave a glorious solarity to the shepherds’ song of thanksgiving. After the first movement, I thought this might be the best “Pastoral’’ I had ever heard. By the end, I was sure.

Concert review

All Beethoven

The Handel and Haydn Society Period Instrument Orchestra conducted by Richard Egarr. At: Symphony Hall, Friday Feb. 26. Remaining performance: Feb. 28. Tickets: $27-$94. 617-266-3605, www.handelandhaydn.org

Jeffrey Gantz can be reached at jeffreymgantz@gmail.com