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Music Review

With ‘Eroica,’ H&H caps triumphant performance

What’s in a name? Haydn’s Symphony No. 48 is called “Maria Theresia,’’ on the assumption that it was composed in honor of a visit the Holy Roman Empress paid to the Eszterházy palace, though Haydn probably wrote his piece earlier, in 1769. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 was to have been dedicated to Napoleon, but when he gave himself the title of emperor, Beethoven changed the name of the work from “Bonaparte’’ to “Eroica.’’

These symphonies joined Beethoven’s “Egmont’’ overture on the program the Handel and Haydn Society presented at Symphony Hall last night under Canadian guest conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni, and from the outset, revolution was in the air. Well, almost from the outset. The evening began with a choral contribution in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Handel and Haydn’s Collaborative Youth Concerts. John Finney led choruses from four local high schools in a fervent performance of the “Gloria’’ from Mozart’s “Coronation Mass.’’

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Beethoven wrote the “Egmont’’ overture and incidental music to accompany an 1810 production of Goethe’s play about the 16th-century count who fought for the independence of the Netherlands. Zeitouni didn’t quite match the legendary 2001 performance Claudio Abbado gave here with the Berlin Philharmonic, but he stormed the battlements with poetry as well as passion, a bayonet in one hand, the Bard in the other.

Haydn’s “Maria Theresia’’ certainly sounds as if it could have been written for a visit from the Holy Roman Empress: Horns, trumpets, and timpani sing out the first theme, as if in greeting, and the giddy romp of a finale could be the empress’s recollection of how her 6-year-old daughter Marie Antoinette had played hide-and-seek with the 6-year-old Mozart at her palace. The performance fizzed, all sparkle and wit.

As for the “Eroica,’’ whose true hero is Promethean rather than Napoleonic, the challenge is to find freedom in Beethoven’s long-arched phrases while remembering that speed and power without humanity lead to brotherhood in the abstract. Zeitouni’s punk-tinged “Eroica’’ was of a piece with his “Egmont’’: beauty and the beast in equal measure. It was the best live performance of this symphony I’ve heard. Revolution achieved.

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Jeffrey Gantz can be reached at jeffreymgantz@gmail.com