BAROQUE AND BEYOND / SSO Organ Series / Review

 

BAROQUE AND BEYOND

SSO Organ Series

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (18 January 2026)

Fact: I have not been a regular to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s organ series, often preferring to take long snoozes on Sunday afternoons. That is a grievous loss, as I realised this afternoon, having dragged myself out of bed to a very crowded Victoria Concert Hall. The offering was unusual as it featured re:Sound, Singapore only professional chamber orchestra, and Koh Jia Hwei, a pianist who had transitioned to become an organist. (Now she can say she has a bigger organ than her hubby, virtuoso pianist Lim Yan.)

Koh opened the 75-minute concert with a solo, J.S.Bach’s Passacaglia & Fugue in C minor (BWV.582) on VCH's Klais organ. Having heard this numerous times on CD recordings, one can only conclude that a live performance is an infinitely better experience. The opening bass notes are performed on the pedals, and when she hit the low C, one could actually feel the hall vibrate. The ensuing short variations on the ground bass theme were built incrementally with manuals, and when pedals joined in, the sonorities expanded to envelop the entire hall. At its climax, with all four limbs in hectic action, one could only marvel at what organists achieve which mere pianists only dream of. In a word, breathtaking.

Photo: Resound Collective

The string players of re:Sound then trooped in for Arcangelo Corelli’s most performed concerto grosso, the one in G minor (Op.6 No.8), popularly known as the Christmas Concerto. This featured Isaac Koh on chamber organ which functioned more like a continuo. Led by Yang Shuxiang, the strings played with cohesion and tautness, generating a vibrato and volume that was unafraid to tread on period instrument practice fingers and toes. Still not sure why the music is related to Christmas, but there was a pastorale filled with the sound of drones in its finale to close on a warm and happy high.

Photo: Resound Collective

The concert’s big work was Liechtensteinian composer Josef Rheinberger’s Organ Concerto No.2 in G minor (Op.177) with a return of Koh and an augmented re:Sound with brass (French horns and trumpet) and timpani. Rheinberger (1839-1901), like Karg-Elert, Gigout, Lemare, Widor, Bonnet and Buxtehude, is a name familiar only to organists, I suspect. Never previously heard this three-movement work, I was prepared to be surprised. Shock and awe were more the actual response, being caught unaware by both organ and ensemble in full throttle. The late-Romantic idiom with mild dissonance was familiar enough, its grand gestures Elgarian, and one of its themes even seemed to head in the direction of Nimrod before stopping short and pulling away. This movement garnered much applause, and that seemed almost appropriate given the buzz.

Photo: Resound Collective

The central slow movement in C major alternated organ solo with muted strings, but that soon built up a head of steam for a loud and stormy climax before receding to a quiet close. The finale replicated the opening’s busyness and raucousness, with punched out chords alternating between G minor and major keys. There should have been a big melody a la Saint-Saens, but there was still sufficient melodic interest to propel the movement to a glorious G major close.

Greeted with tumultuous applause from a full-house, the encore, although somewhat predictable (given the general tonality of the concert) but still highly enjoyable, was Bach’s Air on G string (from Orchestral Suite No.3), which is actually in D major. Strings alternated with organ solo, before coming together for a peaceable and sublime close. Looks like Sunday afternoons would never be the same again.

MUSICAL SOUVENIRS / Koh Jia Hwei & re:mix / Review

 

MUSICAL SOUVENIRS 

Koh Jia Hwei (Organ) 

& re:mix 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Sunday (21 July 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 July 2024 with the title "Koh Jia Hwei and re:mix give Victoria Concert Hall's Klais organ a workout".

Part of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s innovative Organ Series, local pianist-turned-organist Koh Jia Hwei pulled out the stops for an unusual recital which combined Anglo-French repertoire with music for organ and strings. For about 55 minutes without intermission, the Victoria Concert Hall’s Klais organ was given a workout to a receptive Sunday afternoon audience demonstrating that interest in the “king of instruments” is far from dead. 

20th century English composer Herbert Howells is better known for his choral music, but his take on Psalm 34 Verse 6 (The Poor Man Cried, And The Lord Heard Him) is worth hearing. Its quiet opening and slightly chromatic language soon give way to the organ’s full voice. This was best heard in Victoria Concert Hall’s circle seats, now with an unobstructed view of the organ’s glorious pipes. 

The blind French organist-composer Louis Vierne is perhaps best remembered for having collapsed and died while playing on the organ of Notre Dame Cathedral. Koh chose two short items from his 24 Pieces in Free Style, which fittingly included the Epitaphe and Postlude. The subdued chordal voices in the former and the free-wheeling flourishes of the latter were starkly contasted, amply illustrating what the instrument was capable of. 

For the concert’s second part, Koh was joined by 25 string players of re:mix, led by SSO first violinist Foo Say Ming. This crack string outfit specialises in playing modern arrangements of old standards and film music. Right up its alley was Georges Delerue’s Concerto de l’adieu, adapted from his music for the 1992 feature film Dien Bien Phu. 

This neo-baroque elegy for the loss of French Indochina to the Vietnamese in 1954, as arranged by Chen Zhangyi, resembled in spirit the famous Albinoni-Giazotto Adagio in G minor heard in the movie Gallipoli. Typical of such heart-wrenching and emotional scores, Foo’s violin played prime protagonist, his digital calisthenics and sumptuous tone overcoming all odds to emerge like a cantor in a moving confessional. 

The unequal balance of forces between mighty organ and puny strings were surprisingly not a big issue given the skilled writing. Organ bluster was mostly reserved for big chords and febrile climaxes, with muted figurations filling in the textures alongside the strings. 

Koh took a well-earned break in Xiong Meiling’s Crying For Love (Ku Sha, or Crying Sand), a 1990 Mandarin lovesong famously covered by Tracy Huang and A-Mei, also in Chen’s arrangement. Foo and his charges positively wallowed in nostalgia, with the most poignant moments coming with his solo accompanied by pizzicato strings. 

The concert closed with the familiar Chaconne in G minor attributed to Tomaso Antonio Vitali as arranged by Ottorino Respighi with the organ returning to the fray. Its series of short variations on a ground bass unfolded majestically, with each change in key adding to the music’s inevitable sense of destiny. Here, violin solo, string ensemble and pipe organ shared the spotlight, and deservedly became first among equals.