LANCASTER, Ohio — How appropriate that Artistic Director Gary Sheldon chose an all-Beethoven program to begin the Lancaster Festival's 20th anniversary season Thursday.

When the music is played with the ferocity with which the composer wrote it, little is more exciting.

A capacity crowd jammed the pews of St. Mary Church to hear the Egmont Overture, composed for the Goethe tragedy with its signature heroic brass motive; the rarely performed Choral Fantasia, requiring a unique ensemble; and the world's most famous piece of music, the Symphony No. 5.

These works are "high Beethoven," written with the full strength of his powers. The composer is often cast as "the first romantic" or "the great revolutionary," and these works demonstrate why: Beethoven unleashed music's full emotional potential, setting the stage for 100 years of exploration and discovery.

Sheldon, who conducted, began Egmont at a slow pace, not only lending it a capacity for high drama but allowing the audience to revel in the majestic sound of the Lancaster Festival Orchestra in this acoustic environment. The orchestra, with concertmaster Michael Davis of Columbus, attracts from various parts of the globe many of the same musicians from season to season and has steadily improved in quality. Among the fine key players: Donna Conaty (Columbus), oboe; Gabriel Radford (Toronto), horn; John Sant-Ambrogio (St. Louis), cello; and Diane Schick (Kansas City, Kan.), piccolo. A few ragged edges popped up in this and succeeding works, but Sheldon and forces gave them the sweeping grandeur they deserve.

The Choral Fantasia is a quirky piece, opening with a long solo passage on the piano (the composer played the premiere), moving to a theme and variations for piano and orchestra and then returning with the vocal soloists and a chorus for a big finish. Piano soloist Judith Lynn Stillman (Providence, R.I.) worked hard to give her long solo the required power.

Located in front of the altar, the Lancaster Chorale projected nicely. Directed by Robert Trocchia, the chorale may not be large, but it offers a professional sound, good balance and convincing command of languages — in this case, German.

It was a pleasure, after so many years of admiring this work, to finally have a chance to hear it in a live central Ohio performance.

Beethoven's Fifth may be famous, but it is not so often performed in concert. Sheldon and the Lancaster Festival Orchestra played it almost as if they were attacking it for the first time, with edge-of-the-seat tension in much of the four movements. Some fine points may have lacked clarity and, playing full out, the orchestra is very big for that space. But with the purity of Beethoven's orchestration and the full, round sound flowing out of the orchestra, this revolutionary piece was just as it should be — a glorious experience.

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