Cameron Carpenter Performs on His Touring Instrument (original) (raw)
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Music Review
Organist Introduces New Partner in Concert
Cameron Carpenter played the first concert on his new movable International Touring Organ, custom-built by Marshall & Ogletree, on Sunday at Alice Tully Hall.Credit...Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times
- March 10, 2014
Every pipe organ in every concert hall and church in the world is essentially built to order and, of course, immobile. Each is also usually conceived with a specific repertory in mind. Important touring organists must adjust to each instrument and locale, which can be fascinating, frustrating or both.
Like most organists, Cameron Carpenter, the 32-year-old superstar, who combines a punkish persona with tremendous skills and an admirable way of connecting with audiences, has spent a lot of time playing on vastly different instruments here and there. On Sunday at Alice Tully Hall, he realized a fantasy with the world premiere of his International Touring Organ, made by Marshall & Ogletree, organ builders in Needham, Mass., who, as Mr. Carpenter has said, are redefining the digital organ as an instrument of artistic significance.
This one was designed specifically for Mr. Carpenter to be his own portable instrument. In building it, Marshall & Ogletree sampled sounds from a wide range of traditional pipe organs, including some of Mr. Carpenter’s favorite instruments around the world.
The International Touring Organ is not your typical, compact digital instrument, as the audience for Mr. Carpenter’s Sunday afternoon program (the first of two that day) found out upon entering the hall. In the rear of the stage was a row of nine cabinet-like boxes, each with four vertical speakers. Behind that row were four large additional speakers.
When Mr. Carpenter, in his trademark black leather pants and shirt, came out to rousing applause, he pulled away a black covering, like a magician, to reveal the gleaming console beneath. With its multiple manuals, pedals and side boards of stops, it looked like a hipper version of what you’d see in a cathedral.
So how does it sound? Quite terrific.
Mr. Carpenter began with his own arrangement of Bernstein’s Overture to “Candide.” Musically, this was the low point of the program. To show off the tonal variety of the organ by playing different musical sections with diverse instrumental colors, Mr. Carpenter took this breathless overture at a somewhat restrained tempo. There were also tiny time gaps when he had to use a hand to engage different stops or set off digital cues. But the sounds were amazing, from hurdy-gurdy bass lines; to mellow, reedy harmonies; to ballpark-organ brassy swells; to alluring melodic lines with the richness of strings.
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