HALLOWEEN AT VICTORIA CONCERT HALL

HALLOWEEN NIGHT

LORAINE MUTHIAH, Organ

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (30 October 2022)

 

It was a sold-out concert on Sunday afternoon, and there was a crush to get into Victoria Concert Hall. The long queue that snaked outside all through The Arts House porch was mostly to see Shen the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton (to be auctioned by Christie’s), and it seemed appropriate given this was the day before Halloween. I was fortunate to get a seat through jazz pianist Tze Toh, who has a new composition premiered by his NUS Piano Ensemble alumnus-colleague and organist Loraine Muthiah at this Halloween-themed organ recital.

Shen, the T.rex skeleton
will be sold to the highest bidder,
and probably end up in Dubai!

 

All such recitals on The Old Vic's Klais Organ must begin with J.S.Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. There is really nothing scary about this work, except for its frequent associations with ghoulish organist-characters playing in supposedly haunted houses. Do all haunted houses have pipe organs? It’s all a movie cliche, which Victoria Concert Hall Presents series perpetrates with its visually appealing and credible son et lumiere show this afternoon. Loraine is certainly a fine performer, one who has the chops for this music, which continued into Henri Mulet’s Chapelle de morts and Louis Vierne’s Gargoyles and Chimerae.

 

There isn’t anything particularly haunting about the Mulet other than a plodding beat leading into the catacombs, while the frequent change of registers and dynamics in the Vierne had a kind of dissonance which was intermittently disconcerting to say the least. Christopher Brown’s Nocturne is an effective night piece but nowhere as skin-crawling as Bartok’s patented night music. An organ transcription of his Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta would really work in this context.

 

Rumour has it that Victoria Concert Hall is still occupied by spectral beings, even after its major renovation. One must not forget that it was once used as a hospital during World War II, and several Japanese officers and administrators were sentenced to death in the tribunals, and the late Lee Kuan Yew’s inauguration of his People’s Action Party took place at this very venue. I have not personally witnessed any paranormal aberrations other than zombie automatons trying to prevent human beings from taking photographs in concerts. 

 

Perhaps the most interesting diversion was provided by Tze’s Enemy Mine, which had nifty effects of an alien’s heavy breathing and possible spaceship sounds. His alien creature is supposedly hideous-looking but as the work progressed on its syncopated, rhythmic and tango-inspired path, it began to metamorphose and normalise in appearance. At the end, it looks like one of us.

 

Closing the concert was a staple of pipe organists, all four movements of Leon Boellmann’s Suite Gothique. Its imposing opening movement made a hugh roar, contrasted by the quieter central movements. Stealing the show was its Toccata finale, and has anybody noticed that its main melody is the same as the Malay song Di Tanjung Katong but in a minor key? Needless to say, it provided a sangat baik close to an interesting and involving recital.

Loraine Muthiah, Tze Toh
and some Halloween guests.

 

Some people really dressed the part.

On a more sombre note, we offer heartfelt condolences to the families who lost loved ones at the Halloween weekend disaster in Itaewon, Seoul the night before. Nothing can replace their loss, and we can only hope that time heals wounds, and such tragedies should never happen again.