Two was indeed pleasant company for the latest program from the Portland Symphony Orchestra. A talented duo of pianists performed the sorts of pieces not often heard coming from the stage of Merrill Auditorium.

The longstanding duo of Sivan Silver and Gil Garburg faced each other across a pair of grand pianos for two works that spanned centuries but nonetheless offered a fairly large Sunday afternoon crowd a chance to appreciate both contrapuntal and complementary keyboard collaborations.

Backed by a small coterie of PSO players under the baton of Eckart Preu, Silver and Garburg began with a take on Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Concerto #2 in C major for Two Pianos and String Orchestra.” As is often the case with Bach, the piece felt at times like an elegant but playful race around exuberant, in this case shared, themes.

From a vantage point to the left of the stage, it was possible to see Silver’s fingers fly as she leaned into the work’s challenging tempos. Occasionally lifting her left arm as if she were about to employ her elbow in the playing, the youthful pianist was entertaining in her intensity. Amid his own whirlwind playing, Garburg looked on as Silver made the music sparkle.

A brief break provided time for more musicians to emerge from the wings for the second piece on the program, Francis Poulenc’s “Concerto in D minor for Two Pianos & Orchestra.”

This 20th century work wanders delightfully over the modern musical map stylistically and in terms of dynamics and mood.  The something-for-everyone composition tested the Silver-Garburg duo’s, as well as the PSO’s, abilities to keep up and arrive at the right destinations on time.

In this piece, Poulenc could sound deeply invested in “serious” Neo-Classical or Impressionistic music one moment and evoking an almost Gershwin-like populism the next. In a way, the piece felt like an overture or a suite but there were some breathtakingly lovely passages, well executed by the duo and orchestra.

The pianist pair took their bows to a standing ovation. Both given bouquets of flowers, Garburg graciously handed his to the first violinist, Amy Sims.

The intermission produced a flurry of activity on stage as pianos were removed and chairs were added, the latter to be quickly filled by the numerous additional musicians required for the major work that would come next.

Béla Bartok also wrote music for two pianos.  But closing this program was his rather formidable “Concerto for Orchestra,” composed near the end of his life and premiered in Boston.

As Preu explained in brief remarks after returning to the stage, the piece moves from darkness to light in a way not often found within works in the modern idiom, albeit in Bartok’s case an idiom informed by the composer’s extensive early research in Eastern European folk music.

The PSO thundered at times but also offered sensitive touches in some of the work’s more reflective passages.  Pairs of soloists (perhaps tying into the two-instrument theme of the earlier program) shone brightly, particularly the trumpets stood apart. High strings raised the emotional stakes. A brass chorale at one point in the five-movement piece was a sweet pleasure to hear. Also, the presence of two harps added an otherworldly aura at times in a piece which occasionally transfigured with an inviting warmth.

A particularly animated Preu confirmed his intent to draw all of the work’s elements into this highly engaging performance of a piece that succeeds at being both penetrating and popular.

Steve Feeney is a freelance writer who lives in Portland.

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