If Christoph Eschenbach were managing the Phillies rather than directing the Philadelphia Orchestra, the press would say he was simply “playing out the string.” But when he brought his charges to Carnegie Hall on Tuesday evening for a program of Mozart and Bruckner, he arrived with the considerable baggage that his tenure will be the shortest in modern Philadelphia history.

Some must be disappointed in his projected early departure. He had a name right out of central casting and the European sophistication to grant him instant respectability. He looks really good on that podium. He proved himself to be an excellent fund-raiser and, as they say in the classical game, the musical scale begins and ends with dough. If only he could have put together consistently superb concerts. Oh well — three out of four ain’t bad.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, Mr. Eschenbach’s interpretation of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 was a lot better than it sounded. He has a firm grasp of the architecture of this superb masterpiece, and he conducted with measured patience and very intelligent choices of tempos. His accelerandos were brisk and bracing, his development of the melodic material in the two outer slow movements was revelatory, and his pauses unrepentantly dramatic. Mr. Eschenbach even achieved the sense of destruction of linear time so important to Bruckner’s description of the soul’s spiritual journey: When your subject is paradise, you don’t need a clock.

The orchestra, however, sounded atrocious. The first dozen measures or so were completely out of kilter, with horns and trumpets coming in at different times, and strings sliding into sloppy entrances. As the misterioso section unfolded, exits became a problem and before too long the first violins in particular were sounding quite shrill. It may be unfair to blame Mr. Eschenbach for the raveling of the “fabulous Philadelphian” sound — many put this squarely on the shoulders of Riccardo Muti, and I won’t argue with them, at least not today — but there is no doubt that just before the Eschenbach era the band sounded spectacular under regent Wolfgang Sawallisch.

One of Bruckner’s greatest sonic effects, the searing minor ninth that opens the final Adagio, was ruined by several string players who were by this time quite out of tune, the result of Mr. Eschenbach’s insistence on double forte for the previous hour. The high brass was forced to consistently overblow, and the winds were virtually inaudible all night. Still, the work is so powerful that the distressingly sparse crowd gave the ensemble a heartfelt ovation.

Music history books will tell you that Bruckner died before completing this symphony, but they are wrong. For Anton Bruckner, that most spiritual and humble of composers, the idea of approaching the infinite was not just daunting but inexpressible. It would have been antithetical to all of his beliefs to fashion a work that described the culmination of his ultimate journey. It becomes evident, upon examining the creed that defined his life, that his last symphonic statement would have been to leave a fragment. Like Martinelli’s not singing the last syllable of “bacio” in “Otello,” the final silence is the heart of the music’s eloquence.

The evening opened with an acceptable but rather mechanical Violin Concerto No. 5 of Mozart. Gil Shaham was his usual professional self, employing a pleasantly bright tone and undeniable technical mastery but somehow seeming to be playing by rote. Oddly, Mr. Eschenbach, who navigated Bruckner’s complex landscape without a score, needed the printed music for this orchestral accompaniment, staring at the pages as if to get his bearings. He seemed to need to know whether they were on the oom, the pah, or the pah.

Even though his reign in Philadelphia was a troubled one, don’t count out Mr. Eschenbach as a candidate for the New York Philharmonic job. After all, he was a guest conductor here before signing on down south. It seems much more likely, however, that Mr. Shaham will soon be a more frequent soloist, since his brother-in-law, St. Louis maestro David Robertson, appears to be the front-runner.