LUCERNE, Switzerland -- If ever there were an apt place for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra to peak, it's here, in the country of alpine summits. Towering Mt. Pilatus watches over this pleasant city of famous wooden bridges, and here the PSO finished its own climb with a flourish.

The PSO has been playing the same repertoire for its entire 2009 European Festival Tour and much of it last year at Heinz Hall. But last night, the orchestra and music director Manfred Honeck had something special left for the last -- and the most important -- concert at the Lucerne Festival. In its Culture and Convention Center, Dvorak's Symphony No. 8, Weber's Overture to "Der Freischutz" and Beethoven's Violin Concerto, again with soloist Viktoria Mullova, showcased an orchestra returning to top form.

In the crush of summer festivals worldwide, the Lucerne Festival is the most prestigious venue for international orchestras. To close its season with concerts here, as the PSO is doing, is precious indeed. So then, how would you rate being invited back immediately to return? Somewhere up there with having a big Swiss bank account, no doubt. And the PSO might just have to open one up because the relationship is looking as though it will be a long-term one. After the packed concert yesterday, Lucerne Festival director Michael Haefliger announced that he had offered an invitation to the PSO and Honeck to return in 2011.

"It is one of the best American orchestras, and we love to have them here," said Haefliger. "We had great concerts when they came last time with Mariss Jansons, and we had a great concert tonight, and we hope we can build on the same road."

The concerts are still in the planning stages, with no word on whether they will be part of a vaunted weeklong residency, but they will be during the run of the festival rather than to close it. The orchestra is thrilled, of course.

"The Lucerne Festival is exciting and rarefied, and we are quite honored to be invited back so quickly," said PSO president Lawrence Tamburri backstage at the concert. "To be included in the array of orchestras they invite is certainly prestigious for the Pittsburgh Symphony."

All this on a night when, due to Rosh Hashanah, the PSO operated at slightly less than full strength. Some Jewish musicians opted to play the concert, some did not, but their colleagues poured their hearts into the music to compensate and to show the audience this is the same crack ensemble they heard in 2003. The list of standouts could go on and on, from clarinetist Michael Rusinek's milky second theme in "Freischutz" to trumpeter George Vosburgh's crafted solos in the Dvorak to flutist Damien Bursill-Hall's role in the encore of Grieg's "Morning Mood." Rustic horn playing, burnished strings and meshed woodwinds only start the litany. But suffice it to say, the ritzy (heck, Cesar Ritz used to live here) and knowledgeable audience got to hear their best.

As for Honeck, whose family was in from nearby Western Austria, it is becoming clear that he conducts with the sound of an excellent hall in his head all the time. There are aspects of his conducting the tour repertoire that have not entirely worked in Bonn and Essen -- namely, the use of ultra-pianissimo and drastic shifts in dynamics.

But in the impeccable acoustics of the Culture and Convention Center hall, with a near perfect size of about 1,800 seats and adjustable walls, suddenly Honeck's ideas came forth in full glory. Here the pianissimos were shimmering instead of shaking. The contrasts, especially the jocular and naturalistic ones in the Dvorak, sounded like watching (good) 3-D. Honeck will eventually have to adapt with the PSO to each hall every time, but with Carnegie Hall and the Musik­verein on the horizon, it is good to know he has his sights, or ears, set on the best of the best.

That's where the PSO again showed it belongs last night.