Revolutionary

When I was a teenager, I played the organ in a local church. During services, there were strict rules about what was and was not considered sufficiently solemn. The organ was supposed to provide a meditative background to a meditative ritual. But when I was alone to practice, I would explore the organ. It could make a bewildering, amazing variety of sounds, and it turned out to lend itself to a surprisingly wide repertoire. My mother and I loved to play Mozart on it, for instance. And waltzes. It was thrilling. Absorbing. I was rarely so happy to be alive as when playing the organ. I recognize in Carpenter that same excitement about music, and about exploring what you can make the organ do, pushing it to its limits -- but (and here the comparison to myself breaks down entirely) combined with an enormous amount of talent and a skill which is the result of many years of intense study. Carpenter is an extremely skilled organist and a great performer who can play an astonishing variety of music. He continuously tries to push the boundaries, both of himself and of the instrument. He tries to share his enthusiasm for music with the audience, even if the audience knows nothing about organs and never heard organ music before. Once you realize what he is trying to do, you realize he succeeds brilliantly. If, however, you are a fan of historically accurate baroque music and you want to hear Ton Koopmans doing his level best to play 18th century music the exact same way it would have sounded in the 18th century, you should go listen to Ton Koopmans. He's really good at that sort of thing! His recordings are widely available! To complain that Carpenter is not trying to be Ton Koopmans, and unsurprisingly does not succeed at what he is not attempting, is is like buying an apple and complaining that it's not an orange. Maybe one day he'll choose to do a collection of Bach fugues on an authentic baroque-era instrument in an authentic baroque style. And I bet he'd do an admirable job of that. For now, though, I suspect he's too busy.

It's about time someone came along and blew the dust off of some of these fossils. There are hundreds of recordings you can listen to if you want to hear the Toccata and Fugue the way (most people think) Bach intended it to be played. I suppose some of these people also want to throw Stokowski off a cliff for creating an orchestral version? Every generation of musicians and composers have borrowed from and re-imagined the work of those who've gone before. Carpenter is no different. If you don't like what he's done, then fine. Don't listen to it. But don't condemn his work just because he's not producing yet another staid recording of a classic.

...from an astounding and major talent. There are plenty of organists--a couple centuries' worth--playing serious repertoire in the proper and serious way (and with rigid fidelity to the composers' wishes). But Music is a big house and there is room here for the unconventional and exuberant. Indeed, many genres welcome and celebrate these characteristics. Cameron Carpenter is not everyone's cup of tea, but he's miraculously talented technically (I have never seen anyone manipulate the console of a large concert organ as spectacularly as he does) and there is a coherent and satisfying musical rationale behind what he puts before us. To my ear, his unorthodoxy extends no further than, say, Glenn Gould or Jean Guillou, both of whom are acknowledged as masters, even geniuses (even if they didn't appear to have raided Siegfried & Roy's closet for concert wear). This young man is worth ten bucks and an hour of your time.

There's a lot of good and a lot of bad here, and I'll try to put my own perspective in as even-handed a way possible. The good? He's got technique coming out his ears. He can zip between manuals and shift registrations in the blink of an eye without missing a beat. Technically, he's a marvel all right. And for show pieces, that trait really shines. His comic fugue is right up his alley, and the shifting registration, instead of annoying or grating, gives the organ a colorful, orchestral sound. When we get to the more serious music, I feel he kind of drops the ball. His Toccata and Fugue in D minor shifts registrations just as often and just as violently as his lighter pieces, but in Bach, that's not exactly warranted, or beneficial. Bach tends to be all about development; forward motion. Carpenter builds in short, blatant, sudden crescendos, drops off to barely-audible whispers, then jumps in again with another explosive trumpet. It's thrilling, but it breaks the cohesion that I love so much about Bach. He throws in parts that were never written in the original fugue, and they serve their purpose - to make my jaw drop. But all these flourishes don't really impress upon me the greatness of the piece being played, so much as they seem to act as (effective) self-promotion on the part of the player. However, there's one thing I can say: Carpenter has technique like you wouldn't believe, and can coax pretty much any sound out of an organ. Right now, I think he's using a lot of that for show. His clothing, his playing; everything about him evokes the image of a showman. But he won't always be as young and handsome as he is now, and he'll eventually grow bored with his own abilities. When that happens, he'll have to question his own reasons for wanting to be a musician. And at that key moment, one thing or another will happen: Either he will decide he doesn't want to go the extra distance, retire and live out the rest of his life in some less-spotlighted place, or he will commit less to learning notes and more to learning music, and will become something truly unique. I don't think anything is evident in Carpenter now other than potential. And boy, what potential. But genuine greatness? That possibility lies in the future, and it's on him to decide if it's worth striving for.

i met this guy once and i just want to say to all you one-star-rating people, cameron is not one to play classical organ music the boring way (or what you call "the right way") he likes to arrange it to make the piece more modern so it will appeal to younger listeners. at a performance, he'll do more than just sit on the bench, and sometimes he invites members of the audience to come up and play a duet with him. cameron looks beyond the black and white on the paper and finds the meaning behind the ink and plays the music how he thinks he should play it instead of what some editor or music teacher says. in other words, he knows how to have fun. keep it up, cameron! i love what you do with your music!

As I read these seemingly endless reviews, I find that people tend to either like this music very muct or they reject it as a mockery upon the organ world. I think it is high time for this to cease. In case you haven't noticed, the title of the album is "Revolutionary." Indeed, this album is certainly revolutionary. That title has two purposes: 1) to denote the nickname for the first track (Chopin's Etude Op. 10, No. 12) and 2) to show that he didn't create this album to satisfy the traditional conservative organ crowd. The way in which he plays is not traditional, nor is it meant to be. For those who call is a mockery, it's not meant to impress you. It's meant to challenge the way you think about the organ. Also, his disregard for composers' notes and suggestions is a way of making each piece his own. We all need to step back and listen to this music for what it is: a revolution.

Without a doubt Cameron Carpenter is a wonderful artist. His command of the keyboard is superb. His choice of registration is unique to just bizarre. Parts of this recording were magical others not so hot. I know what Bach should sound like, that is the problem. If I were ignorant of other performances I would be totally in awe. No matter how I feel, this recording is worth buying for the performance alone.

While looking for a list of 'definitive' organists on the web, I found a forum of organists who were discussing who, amongst themselves, was 'the best', and Cameron Carpenter's name came up several times. The words used were 'Raw talent', 'someone to watch', and from one man who'd heard him play, 'breath-taking'. Bach's Fugue was mentioned several times as something different, so I decided to buy it. When I downloaded Carpenter's version of Bach's Fugue, I had no idea what I was going to get, but I can say, after listening to it several times, I've placed all my other versions of it into the 'dead' file. Beyond his obvious skill (and if this is him now, I can't wait to see what he can do when he's more 'polished'), he lends to the Fugue (as well as other pieces) a freshness and life these works don't have under the more traditional interpretations. His style is 'cathedral', meaning the music is sometimes larger than life and, at times, one feels one is listening to a symphony and not 'just an organ'. Given the way he fully utilises the range and stops of the pipes, I would dearly love to hear him play live, to feel the notes and chords as they vibrate through sinew and mortar and stone. I suspect it would be quite a rush.

Cameron, you're a star, so keep sparklin! Contratromba, people say the same thing about marriage these days, but it too, is being redefined. With every new generation progressives will emerge, just as these composers did in their own time pushing the limits of normality.

While this isn't the place for discourse, I am moved to review this by the preposterous, offensive suggestion in one recent review that Cameron Carpenter is a soulless shell. Perhaps the writer of that review should take the cotton out of his ears, and other places. Cameron Carpenter is the ultimate organist alive today, so expect a lot of disagreement as to this album. If you know something about music, and are able and open to be moved (rather than merely sitting back waiting to be impressed), then this album is for you - and you'll still be not only impressed, but blown away and humbled, especially if like me, you're an organist. There is nobody - NOBODY - who can do what this young man does, but to do it with passion, panache and MUSIC - as he so vehemently DOES - is mind-blowing. Get past the purists, buy this album, and listen to it, many times. As for there being anyone alive who can approach him technically, that's simply laughable. There isn't (and the reviewer who said there is, didn't believe it enough to name names).