Great Falls Philharmonic has a mixed outing with Beethoven Ninth
Derek Maseloff conducted the Great Falls Philharmonic in music of Beethoven and Bernstein Saturday in Reston. Photo: Caren Hoehner
After scheduling Saturday’s Great Falls Philharmonic concert, artistic director Derek Maseloff won a conducting position with the U.S. Army Band. When he was offered the position, Maseloff told the audience, he asked whether his infantry officer training would allow him to conduct this concert, featuring Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9, the “Ode to Joy.” Maseloff eventually figured out that he could only be there to conduct the Ninth if he didn’t have to repeat anything in training, so when crawling on his belly or rappelling from cliffs, he pushed himself to do it “for Beethoven.”
That is a heartening story yet Saturday afternoon’s performance didn’t go quite as well as Maseloff might have hoped. The acoustic of the Heritage Fellowship Church in Reston, posed a challenge. Maseloff has led the orchestra there before, but as he noted, “this [symphony] is a huge thing, way bigger than anything we’ve ever done.” The orchestra and soloists were crammed onto the stage, projecting into a shallow, wide nave, and strings and percussion dominated throughout. The winds were often barely audible, and the orchestra drowned out the chorus whenever both got loud.
In the first two movements of the Beethoven, the orchestra, composed of freelance players from around the Washington area, did not play up to par, with spotty ensemble in the strings and frequent intonation errors from the horn section. The Adagio molto e cantabile third movement showed an uptick in precision, the strings coming together to limn the theme well. Maseloff led a brisk reading that nevertheless drew out the pathos.
Perhaps the massive finale received most of the attention in rehearsals, for it came off by far the best. The cellos and basses sounded eloquent both in their riposte after the opening bars of chaos and in the “Ode to Joy” theme, first a murmur, then a proclamation.
Joseph Hubbard’s opening “O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!” thrilled both because of his commanding voice and the fact that it came from just a few feet away. Tenor Matthew Hill’s voice sounded fresh and limber in his “Froh, wie seine Sonnen” solo, but he occasionally strayed from Maseloff’s tempo to distracting effect. Soprano Amy Broadbent and mezzo-soprano Sylvia Leith had less to do than the men in the finale, but they did it well, making for a well-matched quartet.
The Voce Chamber Singers, prepared by chorusmaster David Mann, did their best with Beethoven’s challenging writing. At times the strain was apparent, and contrapuntal passages occasionally became muddy. Still, the ensemble sang with gusto and fine tone, with a thunderous “vor Gott!” capping the initial exposition of the “Ode to Joy” tune.
Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms opened the concert. Bernstein’s settings of Hebrew psalms incorporate tricky meters to give his faster passages an extra skip and kick. On Saturday these meters sounded more enthusiastic than precise in both chorus and orchestra. Slower sections fared better.
Treble soloist JJ Hansupichon cast a glow over the proceedings with his solo in the second movement, and the work closed with lucid, hushed singing from the Voce ensemble.
Maseloff founded the Great Falls Philharmonic in 2023, and it’s good to see a young ensemble taking a big swing in programming. With Maseloff’s evident dedication and perseverance, one imagines future ambitious concerts being more successful.
The Great Falls Philharmonic performs Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf on Sunday, August 30. gfphil.org
Posted May 10, 2026 at 3:09 pm by Mary
We thoroughly enjoyed the show from the second row. Also notable was the boy soprano in the Psalms and the two harpists.It was wonderful to hear the Ode to Joy live, it literally gave us goosebumps!