The 9th is an interesting piece for choristers, especially with multiple performances one right after another. One becomes intimately familiar (from a passive listening standpoint) with the first three movements during the ‘long sit,’ as I’ve come to call it.

I really thought that Monday night’s performance was the best from the orchestra, especially during the Scherzo. This word is probably way over-used in music criticism (any kind of criticism really) but if it applies to anything it applies to this scherzo, so I say without hesitation that it was ‘rollicking’ good fun…the tempo was crisp, it seemed like the players were really feeling each other and moved with a common goal in mind, and when necessary the orchestra did a good job of relying on the maestro, who was able to hold things together any time something threatened to get out of hand (so of course that didn’t happen.) I was glad to be able to thank Jun Iwasaki in person after the show for such a good performance. And his violin solo in the Vaughan Williams was breathtakingly beautiful all three nights.

I thought the choir’s best performance was on Sunday night; last night I felt a bit of a lack of focus; some entrances and exits weren’t nearly as precise as they should have been, but it was kind of fun singing the 4th movement at such a blistering tempo. Good times; it’s always a blast to perform with the OSO.