New London – The opening concert of the 71st season of the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra Saturday was billed as a program of “Revolutionaries,” with three time-tested and immensely popular works by Wagner, Prokofiev and Beethoven. And while each performance was virtuosic enough to meet the high standards this orchestra has set as its baseline, each lacked that certain frisson that all but defines a revolutionary work of art.

Pairing Wagner and Beethoven as the revolutionaries made perfect sense, as Beethoven redefined music for the 19th century and Wagner – especially his opera “Tristan und Isolde” – opened the door to the music of the 20th century.

The concert at the Garde Arts Center opened with Wagner’s overture to his opera “Tannhäuser” with its stirring pilgrim’s chorus, one of the best-known themes in the repertoire. ECSO Music Director Toshi Shimada evoked a luminous shimmer in the opening exposition of the chorus with the horns and low winds, but when the trombones entered, the sonic balance went fully out of whack, with little audible but the trombones. The placement of the brass in the acoustic shell may have been at fault, for the problem recurred later, in the Beethoven symphony which included no trombones.

The Venusburg music that followed was animated and crisp, enlivened by feverish figures in the violas and cellos. The stage was set for the grand finale – and it is surely one of the grandest finales, when the pilgrims chorus returned in the hushed opening voices, with rushing violin figures above them. But with the return of the trombones, the violin figures – and almost all of the other 70-plus instruments – were drowned out, and the tempo dragged badly.

The sure crowd-pleaser on the program was a performance of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3, featuring pianist Mark Markham, a musician of singular breadth. In addition to a long career as a concert soloist, the Florida native has a thriving career as a vocal coach for opera companies and performers in the U.S. and Europe. He is a sought-after piano accompanist for voice recitals, most notably concertizing nearly 300 times with stellar soprano Jessye Norman. And he is an active jazz pianist.

The Prokofiev concerto, a unique blend of orchestral lyricism and keyboard pyrotechnics, has long been a favorite of his, so ingrained that he played the complex score Saturday by memory. And despite his mastery of the technical challenges it presented, Markham’s performance seemed oddly disconnected, almost rote.

One had to have a good view of the keyboard to appreciate the challenges Markham mastered, the cascades of scales with crossing hands, long motoric sequences of two-handed octaves and the revolutionary fingerings of the final movement. It is said that the increased virtuosity of today’s performers have robbed some of the drama from earlier works, and at times it seemed as if Markham was performing on autopilot, independently of the orchestra.

When the dazzle fell away in the more expressive passages in the first and second movements, Markham’s phrasing was expressive, with glittery coloristic effects and sensitive rubato. And when all of the forces on stage combined from the irresistible imperative of the coda, the concerto ended on a winning note.

Markham returned from a torchy, late-night reading of Meredith Wilson’s song “Till There Was You,” which the large audience at the Garde lapped up like the sweet offering it was.

The major work on the program was Beethoven’s epochal Symphony No. 3, the “Eroica,” a truly revolutionary symphony in its length and depth, a single work that changed music history.

Shimada took out the opening movement at a brisk pace, promising the excitement to come. The symphony opens with seething tension, the primary theme a feint, an unresolved quest. The music can be assaultive, and in the first occurrence of the crashing six-note sforzando, Shimada leaned into his left hand, making powerful hammering gestures to convey the impact needed. But again, the sound balance threw off the effect. Timpanist Kuljit Rehncy sounded remote, hardly the hammering force needed, and the paired trumpets, seated where the too-loud trombones had been, distorted the orchestral balance with their inappropriate prominence throughout the symphony.

Despite excellent pacing from Shimada and fine sectional play by the bass viols (a constant throughout the symphony), led by principal Thomas Green, the vast opening movement seemed overly polite. At no time did it lag or seem too long – as can easily be the case – but it also failed to grab you by the lapels and shout in your face, as Beethoven surely intended.

The second movement funeral march’s huge central fugue was again marred by sound imbalances, but the march sections were compelling, with oboist Carla Parodi beautifully leading the procession over groaning figures from the basses. The final section, with fragile voicings in the violins, was startlingly moving in this familiar work.

The dancing relief of the scherzo featured fine sectional interplay between the violins and violas, and the central trio, wonderful Alpine sounds from the excellent horn section, was smooth as a Bavarian crème.

The final movement is a set of variations on a song-like theme that Beethoven so loved that he employed it in four different works. It is an odd finale, and despite fine ensemble, felt disjointed as it flagged in its sense of forward movement. The opening pizzicatos in the violins were a tasty sonic treat, and the dense four-layers of sectional counterpoint that followed were cogent and transparent, a tribute to Shimada’s baton. The lovely voicings of Parodi and flutist Nancy Chaput reappeared throughout the variations, especially in the delicate interplay of flute and violins leading into the slashing coda.

Perhaps it’s a tribute to the excellence of the ECSO that a fine performance of such testing works somehow seemed disappointing. But this orchestra reaches for the stars – and they are within its grasp.