Claude Debussy probably did not mean to be flattering when he described the music of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg as “a bon-bon filled with snow.” But after hearing the Bangor Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Grieg’s Norwegian Dances, Opus 35, on Sunday at the Maine Center for the Arts, Debussy’s description seems perfectly apt in the best of ways.

After all, the Norwegian Dances never seem to lose their crystalline appeal, particularly when played with the simplicity and directness that marked Sunday’s concert. Conductor Christopher Zimmerman took the piece around crisp turns but never lost sight of its glacial beauty and dance rhythms.

Oboist Sue Hatch simply sang through solo sections, adding to the romance the orchestra supplied with near jocularity. Even Zimmerman gave a rare display of cheery lightness at the podium, and the combination was like beginning a meal with dessert rather than the entree. No one could possibly have been left with anything other than a smile at the end of this “bon-bon.”

More meaty, however, was the magnetic performance of Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 in E flat major, Opus 82. Zimmerman must have felt the piece was doomed to offend people with its craggy tones and intense climaxes because he gave an introductory minilecture. It was a friendly but foreboding speech in which he used ominous words such as “difficult,” “collapsing” and “imposing.”

As it turns out, the performance spoke strongly for itself, and any fears Zimmerman had about losing the audience dissipated in the diversity of moods the orchestra presented with effectiveness. He was right that the piece is as monumentally halting as an iceberg. Truly, the musicians were deeply engaged in an icy and strenuous concentration.

But the reward was complete, and the Sibelius came off rather jubilantly — even if some felt it was, in Zimmerman’s words, “perplexing.” Some might have wanted to tweak the sound here and there to sharpen the delivery. But the spirit of the success was really measured, afterward, as the conductor returned to the stage three times for applause and a standing ovation. Zimmerman won over the audience, and perhaps even sent a few converts home humming the central theme.

Tucked between the Grieg and the 5th was Sibelius’ “The Swan of Tuonela,” a tone poem taken from a Finnish national epic. A soliloquy for English horn, the “Swan” is a plaintive piece, given velvety smoothness by guest artist Michelle Vigneau. As an English horn player, she proved herself a musical storyteller shaping the prayerful richness and gliding elegance of this bitter-cold picture of a mythological underworld.