Hearing the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra on Tuesday evening at the Isaac Stern Auditorium reminded me of a story. In the depths of the Cold War, someone came up with the idea of promoting an exchange of classical musicians between America and the Soviet Union. When asked to comment, Stern replied, “They can send us their Jewish violinists from Odessa and we can send them our Jewish violinists from Odessa.”

This year the ensemble is visiting under two conductors. Music director for life Zubin Mehta will lead the group on Thursday, and honorary life member Lorin Maazel was on the podium this first night. With the stage festooned with flowers and flags, he began with “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Hatikva.”

These two stirring pieces, followed immediately by the Leonore Overture No.3, made for a very moving experience, a celebration of freedom — that most precious possession of all — and a tribute to those who valiantly fight so that we all may enjoy it.

The orchestra has a gigantic sound, room-filling and broadshouldered. Leonore was inspiring, although I wished for more dynamic contrast — soft passages could have been more delicate, crescendi more dramatic. But perhaps maestro was just reveling in this deeply satisfying sound, so much richer than what he is accustomed to up the street at Avery Fisher.

Less thrilling was a relatively glacial reading of the Beethoven Violin Concerto. Maxim Vengerov, who has just recently come off of sabbatical, performed quite out of character, producing quiet and measured phrases rather than his customary ebullient but often excessively showy enunciations. Perhaps his year away from the concert stage has softened his approach.

It was difficult to tell whether Mr. Vengerov or the conductor was the driving force behind these maddeningly slothlike tempi, but this rendition was really quite dull, at least for the first two movements. The Rondo: Allegro, played at normal speed but a lowered volume, was actually quite beautiful. Mr. Vengerov sounded by turns sweet and delicate, and resisted any temptation to exaggerate the ending of the piece, leaving the immediate impression that this was a tasteful and cultured performance.

Had Maurice Ravel done nothing else with his life but orchestrate Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, he would still have had to be classified as one of the greatest geniuses of 20th-century music. Like Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra or Arnold Schoenberg’s orchestration of Brahms’s Piano Quartet in G Minor, this is a piece to show off a virtuoso assemblage, and Mr. Maazel made the most of it.

Adopting a rather brisk pace for his promenades around the museum — they seemed like sprints after the Beethoven — Mr. Maazel went for the atavistic approach, encouraging his players to sharply emphasize accents and percussive strokes. Perhaps this was not the subtlest of readings, but it reminded me of the justly famous recording by Arturo Toscanini, the man who conducted the first ever performance of this orchestra in 1936.

Some highlights included a dexterous unhatched chick ballet, an atmospheric old castle, and sublime tuba solos by Shemuel Hershko, who somehow managed romantically trembling phrases with his most difficult of instruments. All was proceeding swimmingly until a rather singsong realization of the normally stately great gate of Kiev, which seemed much less imposing in this oddly sculpted reworking. But that’s Lorin Maazel. Love him or hate him, he will always send you home hearing at least one of your favorite passages in a totally new way.

Two nonmusical notes. Carnegie management should be praised for two professional accomplishments this evening. First, even with the additional security in place, the concert started more or less on time. Second, the management provided an immediate and appropriate response to a member of the audience who required medical attention during the violin concerto without disturbing the musicians or missing a beat.