Masterworks Tickets

From the opening song of the Des Moines Choral Society to the Wilberg finale, the choirs were prepared, articulate and glorious. General admission meant I could get great seats in the middle. Dr. Rodde is to be commended for such a strong performance. Of note were the piece about Beethoven which ended with complete silence while the conductor continued to conduct—masterful! Soloists from the ISU choirs were nice. The Mendelssohn and Durante were nice changes of pace from the Haydn “The Heavens Are Telling.” The spiritual at the end was a nice finish with soaring sopranos in harmony on the last chord. The orchestra did a fine job with the accompaniments, staying out of the way of the chorus. Their individual piece, the finale from Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony was at a fast clip, leading to an almost virtuostic performance, although the trombones and tuba were a bit overbearing, and the clarinets needed to tune better. The only other glitch in the performance was the amount of time it took to go from the first set to the second—almost 20 minutes with the curtain down. Seems like that could have gone smoother, and having the chorus stand for the entire orchestral piece was cruel and unnecessary.