It’s an irony — or perhaps just a truism — of classical music that the symphony Beethoven intended as his most radical political statement has become the cornerstone of establishment high culture, a toothless poster child for universal brotherhood and nonsectarian good feelings, whether we’re celebrating Seiji Ozawa’s 25th anniversary with the Boston Symphony or the New Year in Japan or the fall of the Berlin Wall. Leonard Bernstein’s transformation of Schiller’s " An die Freude " into " An die Freiheit " on this last occasion underlined the Ninth’s domestication as a symphony for all seasons. During his entertaining and informative pre-concert talk at Symphony Hall on Saturday afternoon, Harvard Music Department chair Thomas Forrest Kelly dubbed it " the world’s anthem. "

The Handel & Haydn Society performance that followed was the first Beethoven Ninth to be presented on period instruments in Boston since H&H gave the work its Boston premiere in 1853. The rawer sound brought Beethoven’s vision into sharper focus, but the symphony remains problematic, the musical antitheses posed by its first three movements being " resolved " by philosophical fiat in the fourth. The dizzy descent — God incarnating, or Lucifer falling? — of the Allegro non troppo’s D-minor opening subject is challenged by the flowing, life-giving B-flat second theme. The Scherzo’s shadowy D-minor fugato gives way to a jovial D-major Trio; the Scherzo returns as if nothing had happened and the Trio’s attempted return is quashed after just seven bars. The Adagio molto e cantabile is, like the Andante con moto of the G-major piano concerto, a conversation between two sensibilities (the themes were conceived as separate movements), a stoic Adagio in B-flat and a more effusive Andante in D. The Adagio listens to the Andante (just as in the G-major piano concerto the orchestra listens to the piano), and softens; but the Andante is not heard after its second appearance, and the Adagio itself comes under martial attack at the end. The Finale, as explained by Professor Kelly in his folksy Jimmy Stewart manner, is a " bass rage opera recitative, " with the cellos and basses expressing their unhappiness and rejecting the consolation offered in turn by the first three movements (the Adagio being declined with wistful regret) before acceding to the simple, uplifting " Freude, schöner Götterfunken " melody proposed by the winds. The festivities begin; the questions remain unanswered.

Handel & Haydn music director Grant Llewellyn gave us an orchestra of period proportions (61 players, 38 of them strings), and he deployed the first and second violins antiphonally, as every conductor of this music should. But I didn’t hear the long line (what Gunther Schuller calls " four-bar phrasing " ) that gives Beethoven loft and shape, only the usual measure-by-measure thumping; and Llewellyn’s own sensibility had too much yang for my ears and not enough yin. The Allegro’s B-flat theme wants space to bud and bloom; we need to perceive it as an alternative view of the world. Here it was just another melody with unseductive winds. The Scherzo sounded sluggish (but at 116 to the dotted half-note, it was right on Beethoven’s tempo marking) rather than demonic; the fast (not 116) Trio didn’t provide much contrast, though its peroration had a noble simplicity. For the opening of the Adagio, Llewellyn brought Beethoven’s 60-quarter-notes-to-the-minute marking (another tempo mystery) down to 48 to provide contrast with the 63 bpm Andante; the harrowing transition into the G-major second appearance of the Andante went for nothing, and at the end we didn’t seem to have undergone a traumatic experience. The Finale is a juggernaut, its fast " Turkish March " (disregarding the 84 bpm tempo marking) with no hint of village humor. Of the four soloists, baritone Stephen Powell was an effective establishment spokesperson, but tenor William Hite got lost in the gabble/rabble of the march, and there was some squawking from at least one of the two ladies (soprano Ellen Chickering and mezzo Mary Phillips). One might have hoped, too, that the H&H chorus could have sung their part from memory.

What seem to me Llewellyn’s failings are confirmed (and often magnified) in the period-instrument recordings by Christopher Hogwood, Frans Brüggen, Roger Norrrington, and John Eliot Gardiner. But Otto Klemperer, to take just one example (in particular his November 1957 Royal Festival Hall performance), finds worlds of contrast, shading, and meaning in a big reading that restarts the revolution. It remains to be seen whether 21st-century Beethoven will revolt or just revolve.