Washington parents owe a word of thanks to the members of the National Symphony Orchestra, who took the stage of the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Sunday afternoon to play a short program of spooky music for Halloween and to do so (mostly) in costumes. An impressive crowd of Harry Potters, princesses, devils, lions, ninjas, ghosts, and goblins, with their parents, filled the house.

To the bass-heavy introduction of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” (from Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite), the treble instruments tiptoed to their places, led by principal second violinist Marissa Regni (dressed as a whoopi cushion, complete with flatulent sound effect). Associate conductor Emil de Cou (a white lab-coated mad scientist) rolled a stretcher on the stage and brought a last-row second violinist (Skeletor) to life. Mentions for good costumes go to harpist Dotian Levalier (a blue-robed sorceror who cast spells around the house before the concert) and one of the bass players (the bemustached Borat from Kazahkstan). The program combined classical works with scary themes and excerpts of horror film scores.

Concertmaster Nurit Bar-Josef (a fetching purple gypsy) mistuned her famous violin for the Saint-Saëns Danse macabre, op. 40. The clattering col legno effect from the strings seemed to please the skeletal figures in the chorister seating to either side of the stage (patrons left over from the last Friday matinee, as de Cou quipped). Parts of John Williams’s score for Harry Potter and the “Witch’s Ride” from Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel provided some ear-pleasing effects before the meat of the concert.