VCHpresents Organ: Halloween Night

PROGRAMME

Loraine Muthiah organ J.S. BACH

Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 9 mins

HENRI MULET

Chapelle des Morts from Esquisses Byzantine 5 mins

LOUIS VIERNE

Gargouilles et Chimères from 8 mins 24 Pièces de fantaisie: Quatrième Suite, Op. 55

CHRISTOPHER BROWN

Nocturne 3 mins

TZE TOH

Enemy Mine 5 mins

VCHpresents Commission / World Premiere

LÉON BOËLLMANN

Suite Gothique, Op. 25 15 mins

CONCERT DURATION: approximately 1 hour (with no intermission)

Best dressed wins!

We are looking for the scariest, most impressive dressed concert-goer!

Prizes include SSO merchandise items.

l Follow @vchpresents on Instagram

l Tag @vchpresents in your photo

l T&Cs: IG account has to be set to public.

Contest closes at 12pm, 31 Oct. Winners will be notified via DM.

LORAINE MUTHIAH organ

Loraine Muthiah serves as organist at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Barker Road Methodist Church and the Danish Seamen’s Church, Singapore, in addition to her work as a legal counsel. Having pursued piano accompaniment diplomas at a young age and having a special interest in working with instrumentalists and choirs, Loraine started playing the organ in 2002. At the same time she pursued her legal studies and went on to practise law. After moving to in-house legal work in 2011, she was able to spend more time furthering her organ studies. She has since

attended various organ masterclasses in Germany, France, Holland and the UK and continues her studies in Singapore under Dr Evelyn Lim. Loraine is a founding member and resident accompanist of the Anglican Chamber Ensemble, Singapore, and is also a regular contributor to the VCHpresents Organ Series and projects with the Singapore Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

TZE TOH composer

Tze Toh is synonymous with versatility, described by The Straits Times as “an extraordinary musician whose idiom straddles comfortably between genres of classical, jazz, world and film music” who “possesses an original voice”. His works are often inspired by the relationships between Man, Nature and Technology. In 2007 he founded TO ensemble to explore these themes through original fusion music. After having won the first prize in the 2011 UK Song-writing Contest, Tze started composing extensively for film, contemporary dance, documentaries, animation, video games, concerts, albums, commercials and international events.

He has composed original music for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad theatre piece Snails and Ketchup, Discovery Channel’s Man-made Marvels, Journey of the Youth Olympic Flame 2010 (Auckland) and for brands such as Cartier, Club Med, Rosewood and Nendo.

Believing that the beauty of life exists in the moment, he is an improviser as much as he is a composer.

PROGRAMME NOTES

Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 by J. S. Bach (1685 – 1750)

Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor is probably one of his most famous works today, especially its iconic opening. Often used in Hollywood for horror or scenes of villains playing the organ, this association began as early as the 1930’s films Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and The Black Cat (1934). The work increased in popularity after an orchestral transcription by conductor Leopold Stokowski (himself an organist) was used in Disney’s Fantasia (1940), with Stokowski shown conducting the work in silhouette. The Toccata and Fugue is unusual in that it has features uncharacteristic of organ music of the time and Bach’s own other writings. The piece might have been originally written for violin or harpsichord, or not even by Bach at all!

Chapelle des Morts from Esquisses Byzantine by Henri Mulet (1878 – 1967)

Esquisses Byzantine (“Byzantine Sketches”) is a collection of 10 pieces recalling the Basilica of Sacré Coeur de Montmartre in Paris. Apart from being a site where large numbers of Christians were martyred, Montmartre or Hill of Martyrs is the site of a legend surrounding Saint Denis, a patron saint of France. It is said that he was beheaded by the Romans on Montmartre and that his decapitated corpse carried his head to the area north of Paris.

Chapelle des Morts (“Chapel of the Dead”) depicts the crypt of the Basilica. The piece is dedicated to Cardinal Guibert, then Archbishop of Paris, who got the French Parliament to make the land available for the

construction of a church. This was to fulfil a national vow to build a church as reparation, following France’s defeat in the FrancoPrussian War. Mulet’s inscription includes that Cardinal Guibert’s empty tomb “still awaits in this chapel the accomplishment of his last will”.

Gargouilles et Chimères from 24 Pièces de fantaisie: Quatrième Suite, Op. 55 by Louis Vierne (1870 – 1937)

Louis Vierne was the organist at Notre-Dame de Paris from 1900 until his death in 1937. After completing the main part of a concert at Notre-Dame, Vierne selected the stops on the organ for his closing improvisation, fell forward and off the bench, sounding a low E on the pedalboard. Thus Vierne died at his beloved organ console at NotreDame.

Notre-Dame is known for its myriad gargoyles and chimeras. These take on the shapes of grotesque animals, humans and those that are halfhuman and animal. Gargoyles and chimeras symbolise the presence of evil and danger, hence their location on the exterior of churches. They also were seen to have a protective function, repelling evil spirits and enemies from sacred places by their monstrous and frightening aspects.

Nocturne by Christopher Brown (b. 1943)

Christopher Brown was immersed in the English choral tradition from a young age. As a child, he sang in the choir of Westminster Abbey and later won a choral scholarship to King’s College, Cambridge. Subsequently, Brown went on to study composition at the Royal Academy of Music, during which time he composed Nocturne. He has since composed

many works for choir and voice, in addition to instrumental works. Brown also taught composition for many years at the Royal Academy of Music, and still serves as a composition supervisor at the University of Cambridge.

Nocturne is lyrical while being coloured with dissonance, and paints a scene at night, bathed in moonlight and shadows. Beginning quietly and hauntingly, the piece grows in agitation before the theme returns again, swells and then fades off quietly into the night.

Enemy Mine by Tze Toh* (b. 1978)

VCHpresents Commission / World Premiere

An Extraterrestrial crash lands on Earth injured. Deeming this creature hostile and a threat due to its frightening appearance, the Humans pursued, hunting it with the intent to capture or kill. The chase is interspersed between memories and flashbacks of the extraterrestrial’s home world to the battle at present which culminates in a climax where it barely manages to escape. Bewildered, hurt and lost the Extraterrestrial sets its gaze towards the stars in loneliness and darkness, seeking hope to leave this unfamiliar, hostile and unforgiving world.

This composition reflects upon how quickly we judge based on appearance, make assumptions and act out fear. The conditioning within the human society to regard certain ideals or even standards conforming to what is acceptable to our self-imagery not only stunts any possibility for making a connection but also questions our own humanity.

To create this piece, composer Tze Toh drew inspiration from the many music genres he loves – a

kaleidoscope of influences from tango, jazz and Bach to film scores and sound design.

Suite Gothique, Op. 25 by Léon Boëllmann (1862 – 1897)

Introduction – Choral Menuet gothique Prière à Notre-Dame Toccata

Léon Boëllmann was an accomplished and favoured student of French composer and organist Eugène Gigout, marrying his niece and eventually being designated an adopted son by Gigout. Suite Gothique is Boëllmann’s best-known work, with several instrumental transcriptions made soon after its publication, though Boëllmann died just 2 years later at the age of 35. As a promising musician, Boëllmann might have had a more prominent career in music had he not died at such a young age.

The suite opens with the imposing Introduction-Choral in C minor, where the chorale theme imparts a certain air of majesty and dread. Each statement of the theme is played fortississimo then echoed on the softer Swell manual. This pattern of echoing is reversed in the Menuet gothique, which is in the key of C major and takes the character of a joyful minuet, yet retaining an air of stately elegance. In contrast, the Prière is quiet and peaceful: there is a sense of piety and the eternity. The work’s finale Toccata returns to the key of C minor, with figurations in the keyboard and underlying that, a dark and ominous pedal theme. The toccata continues to grow, building to a sweeping climax and resolution of the entire suite.

Programme notes by Loraine Muthiah and Tze Toh*