For the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, two upcoming European tours will be not just show time, but time to show off how it sounds with its new maestro.

Music director Manfred Honeck will be introduced with the PSO in two high-profile tours that bookend the season. First up is a festival tour this month highlighted by two concerts at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland. The other is in May at the Musikverein in Vienna.

The fall tour opens with stops in Germany in Essen and Bonn, with a debut in the Beethovenfest.

Pittsburgh Symphony European Festivals Tour

Sept. 15: Philharmonie in Essen, Germany. Strauss, "Four Last Songs," with soprano Christine Shafer, Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 (Read review)

Sept. 16: Beethovenhalle, Bonn, Germany. Weber's Overture to "Der Freischutz," Beethoven's Violin Concerto with Viktoria Mullova, Dvorak's Symphony No. 8.

Sept. 18-19: Culture and Convention Center, Lucerne, Switzerland. Bonn and Essen programs, respectively.

"This is an extremely important tour for the Pittsburgh Symphony because it is our first European tour with Manfred Honeck," says Lawrence Tamburri, orchestra president. "The Lucerne Festival is arguably the premier orchestra festival in the world, and going to it puts us in a high-presence position."

Just how crucial the two concerts in the picturesque Alpine city are to the PSO's future in Europe is impossible to know. But when last heard in Lucerne's modernist Culture and Convention Center in 2003, the Pittsburgh Symphony was riding an artistic high wave, with Mariss Jansons at the helm. The orchestra would love to show it is still playing at that elite level.

"No one feels it is a make-or-break moment, but it is an auspicious way of introducing our new director," says Tamburri.

For Honeck, the September appearances are a prerequisite. "The Pittsburgh Symphony has to be back in these places," he says. "It is a fantastic orchestra, and we are ambassadors for Pittsburgh."

Seconding that is the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, which as usual will join the PSO to promote investment opportunities in the Pittsburgh region, leveraging the orchestra as a "world-class cultural asset." There are 70 German-owned companies currently operating in the Pittsburgh region; Switzerland has 19 companies here and "is a newer market" the PRA hopes to expand.

After the triumph of 2003, the PSO stopped going to Lucerne. It turned down an invitation to return in 2004 for a vaunted residency there, citing financial difficulties and lack of a tour sponsor.

Later, the festival indicated it preferred the orchestra return only after it had hired a music director rather than its trio of conductors, according to intendant (director) Michael Haefliger. The PSO eventually hired Honeck, and, this summer when the San Francisco Orchestra withdrew from the prestigious concerts closing the festival, Haefliger jumped at the chance to bring back the PSO.

"We have had excellent experiences with Pittsburgh, back to the time with [Lorin] Maazel," says Haefliger. "Two or three times they came with Mariss Jansons and it was uplifting. We have a great respect for this orchestra. It will be interesting to hear them with their new leader."

This time around, the PSO made good on its invitation because it is touring with the support of its $5.5 million Hillman Endowment for International Performances from the Henry L. Hillman Foundation. That's extremely helpful in the economic downturn, which has prompted some orchestras to cancel tours.

"We don't tour unless we at least break even," says Tamburri, adding that the orchestra earns appropriate fees when it plays abroad.

The gravy -- or the fondue -- for Haefliger is that Honeck is something of a native. He grew up in western Austria only a few hours from central Switzerland.

"Honeck is one of the outstanding conductors of our time," says Haefliger. "The fact that they have chosen him is a positive sign for us."

"It is a great honor to do that," says Honeck of closing the Lucerne Festival. "I played there as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic several times. It reminds me of my time before I started conducting."

Honeck noted another Lucerne peformance with a particularly intriguing connection to the PSO.

"I jumped in for Mariss Jansons with the Oslo Philharmonic in 1996," he says, recalling that Jansons had suffered a heart attack just before the tour commenced.

"I had no idea that Mariss would be music director in Pittsburgh and I would be his successor and I would go back."

Honeck understands the potential of playing well in Lucerne, including the possibility of future residencies there. He programmed the two concerts with major works he and the PSO have performed together with good chemistry: Dvorak's Symphony No. 8 and Bruckner's Symphony No. 4, "Romantic."

The tour opens in a city that mirrors Pittsburgh. Essen and the urban region called the Ruhr were once the center of Germany's coal and steel industries. After those industries' decline, the area reinvented itself as a leader in the service industry, with many of its mills now art galleries and museums.

"[Essen] was the manufacturing center of Germany in the Rhine Valley, but they had to redevelop it," says Tamburri.

Reflecting its resurgence, Essen has been named European Capital of Culture for 2010. The PSO will debut in its Philharmonie Hall with soprano Christine Shafer singing Richard Strauss' "Four Last Songs" along with Bruckner's Fourth.

The orchestra then makes its debut in another important festival, the Beethovenfest in the preeminent composer's hometown of Bonn. The PSO actually played in the Beethoven Hall before but not during the festival because it started inviting American orchestras only recently.

"It is really wonderful to present each year one of the American orchestras," says intendant Ilona Schmiel. "It is a very interesting point to combine different styles of interpretation."

She is fond of Honeck's musical readings and of the PSO's mix of American and European characteristics, and acknowledges the significance of the PSO concerts in Europe for its future.

"Manfred Honeck is not the biggest name that we have in Europe. But if they work hard together they could find their own way," she says.