If a two-hour classical concert is going to feature the works of a single composer, the orchestra has to behave with oceanic musicality. It has to play the drama, find the nuances and keep the audience feeling that there is a progression rather than an obsession being explored.

The all-Beethoven program Sunday at the Maine Center for the Arts proved the Bangor Symphony Orchestra knows the distinctions. With Maestro Xiao-Lu Li leading the way, the players sailed through three of the most defining works of the Romantic period.

Conjuring images of navigation is apt given the great sense of flight that Li evoked, particularly in the opening movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major (“Eroica”). The pacing was urgent without being rushed, a testament to the vigor and muscularity of the string section. But Li gathered all the musicians into a regatta of sound, sometimes meditative and somber, sometimes spasmodic and exclamatory. The swiftness of presentation breezed listeners nicely past the occasional muddy waters from the brass section.

If No. 3 was a regatta, then Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”), performed in the first half of the concert, was an armada with guest soloist Michael Gurt holding the conquering flag. Gurt’s relationship to the piano has a joyful aggression that allows him to stab away at the notes as if to say: “Take that! And that!” Several years ago, the New York Times fittingly claimed the pianist exhibited a “do-or-die bravado,” and clearly the quality has not diminished with time.

Beyond the bravado, however, Gurt displayed an equally virtuosic elegance and tenderness in the quieter moments of “Emperor.” He was reflective and halting, allowing for the clarity of the piano and the voice of the orchestra to assume their roles. To that end, Gurt, a music professor at Louisiana State University, also had an admirable, if not jaunty, unanimity of purpose with his colleagues onstage.

For an encore, Gurt treated the audience to “The Banjo,” a witty fantasy resonant with Americana from the irresistible mind of Louis Gottschalk (who was born in New Orleans in 1829, two years after Beethoven’s death). Gurt trounced delightedly into the piece with an intense speed that threw a breezy mood over the audience. It was an unexpected and gamesome addition to the Beethoven roster, which also included a comparatively forgettable rendition of the overture to “Fidelio” at the beginning of the concert.