Our boy wonder organist Cameron Carpenter was featured this past Sunday with a 13-minute story on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. He demonstrates the organ at Middle Collegiate Church, including an improvisation on the WESun theme. The NPR page for the story also includes the video of Cameron playing the Chopin Revolutionary Etude (from Cameron’s CD/DVD release.) In the NPR story Cameron compares himself as a showman not just to Virgil Fox but also to theater organ great Jesse Crawford, who made the Hammond Organ famous. Why not Ethel Smith, whose most famous number was “Tico Tico“?
October 24, 2008
Voting Complete! You should vote early, too!
I took the afternoon off work today to go to my doctor’s office to get my flu shot (about five minutes, in and out), and then to go downtown Cleveland to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections to vote in the general election. I have had visions of huge lines at my regular polling place on E. 79th Street, where they are, shall we say, not fantastically competent. (I always have trouble getting them to understand my name, even when I spell it: it’s ROBSON, not Roberson, not Robison, not Robinson. Why is it so hard?)
Anyway, the Board of Elections was a model of competence. (A characterization that it has not always been possible to make.) There was a large number of people waiting to vote, but the line moved very quickly and everything was well-organized. The employees were all unfailingly pleasant and friendly, and they gave good instructions to each voter. They give each person a clipboard with the ballot envelope attached, which each person fills out with name, address, and vital statistics. When you get to the front of the line, you hand that clipboard to the clerk, who looks up your information in their database. You’re given another piece of paper to sign, and then the clerk goes to the back to get the ballot (two back-to-back legal size sheets of heavy paper, with fill-in-the-dots). The ballot is massive, which justified my reason to go to early voting. It took me a good ten minutes to complete filling in the dots on the ballot, and I ready quickly and I was familiar with the issues. I predict disasters at the polls on November 4, and I encourage all who can to vote early.
October 20, 2008
Vote for McCain, get more of the same
A new ad, out today from the Ohio Democratic Party. More imaginative than most.
October 19, 2008
AGO Organ Spectacular in Cleveland
Today was the self-proclaimed American Guild of Organists “Organ Spectacular,” the “world’s largest organ recital” with events going on all over the world to promote the organ as the King of Instruments. Cleveland’s all-afternoon event was at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, where Karel Paukert has been the organist/director of music for almost thirty years, and where they have three pipe organs: a classic Walter Holtkamp, Sr., instrument from 1952 (with some later mechanical updates to add couplers and a modern combination action); in the balcony a 1986 Hradetzky mechanical action in the Italian style; and a Baroque style positive organ by Vladimír Slajch.
There were demonstrations on the three organs, followed by “mini-recitals” by three locals (Linda Gardner, playing Stephen Paulus’s “Blithely breezing along”, commissioned by the AGO for the event; Horst Buchholz, new director of music for Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Cleveland, improvising first on Marian themes, and then on “Hyfrydol”, a tune submitted by an audience member; and Jonathan Moyer, new director of music at the Church of Covenant, in music by Bach and selections from Messiaen’s “Messe de la Pentecôte”) and the Mr. Paukert played a concert of music using the organ in an ensemble context, with works by Froberger and Zipoli (on the Hradetzky organ); Donald Erb (with handbells and wine glasses); an improvisation on a tune by Sigur Ros; Peter Eben (his beautiful “Song of Ruth” with mezzo Irene Roberts; and Karg Elert’s striking Third Symphonic Canzona, op. 85, no. 3 for organ, violin solo and female voices.
The afternoon ended with Evensong performed by the Senior Choir of St. Paul’s, conducted by Steven Plank and played by Mr. Paukert. As the closing voluntary, Mr. Paukert played Messiaen’s “Apparition of the Eternal Church.” After the climax of the piece and as it was coming to it’s quiet conclusion, the priest in the chapel adjoining the church’s nave began the Great Thanksgiving for the Eucharist that followed Evensong, and the the church’s carillon began to play. It was an arresting moment that Messiaen himself might have appreciated.
Some of the highlights: Buchholz’s improvisation on “Hyfrydol” in the style of (you choose) Max Reger or Karg-Elert (I confess that German Romantic was not precisely the style that would have immediately come to mind; Moyer’s Messiaen; the Eben “Song of Ruth”; Paukert’s hymn improvisations.
There were also exhibits about the organ, an excellent program booklet, propaganda from the AGO, refreshments. There was also a good crowd through the long afternoon.
October 19, 2008
Boy George’s “Yes We Can”: Dance Hit for the 2008 Election
Boy George: Yes We Can
Boy George, late of the 1980s group “Culture Club” and sometime New York street sweeper, has a new dance tune out in the U.S. (It’s been out in the U.K. for several months). “Yes We Can” samples several of Barack Obama’s speeches and uses them as the raw material around a quite danceable cut. We hear Barack’s words “Change” and “Promised Land” all woven into Boy George’s lyrics. It’s fun. I especially like the 1st track mix. (Click on the image above to go to amazon.com to download the mp3.)
October 16, 2008
In memoriam Peter Avery, OBE
I’m passing along a link to an obituary in the Times of London for Peter Avery, OBE, who was one of George and my acquaintances in Cambridge at King’s College. He was a very noted scholar on Iranian/Persian literature and culture. He was a cantankerous and a larger-than-life character, and you can get a sense of it from his obit. But he was also inspiring to generations of students. One of my lasting life memories was of a very hot summer evening in 2003 in his rooms in the Gibb Building at King’s College, Cambridge, right next door to the entrance to the King’s College Chapel. Peter chain-smoked through the evening (thank God the window was open!), and George and I and our friend Dan Gross had been instructed to meet him at an appointed hour and to take several bottles of wine with us. Over the course of the next 4 hours Peter Avery regaled us with stories, quizzed us on our knowledge of many topics from ancient mythology to current events, showed us the video of his investiture when he received the OBE from QE II. It was one of the most intimidating and intellectually stimulating evenings I have ever spent–all the while drinking our way through the 3 bottles we had brought, plus two more that he already had on hand. (All this on no dinner.) We were his pupils for the evening, and it is easy to see how he became a mentor for his many students and Iranian visitors. His rooms were the stereotype of the English academic, with bookcases full of Arabic and Persian books from floor to ceiling. At several points in the evening he would say to one or another of us, “Get that book down from the shelf over there” and he would read something to us.
I cannot say in any way that I knew him well, but sometimes people make an indelible impression, and Peter Avery was one of those.
Heres the link:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article4950966.ece
Lifting a glass to the memory of Peter Avery…
October 11, 2008
Met HD Video Broadcast: Karita Mattila as Salomé
Karita Mattila a Salomé
Today was the Met’s first Saturday afternoon video broadcast for the season. I saw it at the Cinemark Theaters in Valley View, south of downtown Cleveland. I started going to that theater last season, because the one closest to me was always packed and unpleasant. Others have discovered it as well, because there was a much larger group, but all gray-hairs. I was amongst the youngest in the audience.
The opera was Richard Strauss’s Salomé, with Karita Mattila in the title role; Ildikó Komlósi as Herodias; Juha Uusitalo as John the Baptist; Kim Begley as Herod; and Joseph Kaiser as Narroboth. Patrick Summers conducted. The production was by Jügen Flimm, with sets and costumes by Santo Loquasto. The period was updated from biblical times to (perhaps) World War I, with Herod and his guests in evening dress. Herodias was in a glamorous black and green off-the-shoulder gown and was made up as if she was Elizabeth Taylor in the “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” era. Fellow Salomé Deborah Voigt was the host, introducing Mattila before the performance (who words to the audience were that she was going out “to kick ass.”) And she did—it was a stunning performance. The camera was able to focus on the degredation. The only snort of laughter was when Salomé describes Jokanaan as “gaunt”. Mr. Uusitalo looked as if he’d never missed a good meal. He did not have the vocal force and magnificence of some great Jokanaans of the past (for example, Bryn Terfel most recently), but he was decent.
It was Karita Mattila’s show, however. She threw herself into the part, sliding around on the stage using her body as much as her voice. She was first in a slinky white negligee/formal dress, and in the final scene with the head of John the Baptist she was in a black bathrobe. Her voice was variously sensuous, powerful, strident, but she acted the part. It was an incredible achievement. It had been previously announced that the movie theater audience would not see Mattila “take it all off” at the end of the “Dance of the Seven Veils.” We saw her topless with her arms covering her breasts, but at the climax of the dance, we saw instead a close-up of Herod’s face in ecstasy.
The final scene, in which Salomé makes out with the severed head of John the Baptist, was riveting, alternating adoring and abhorring her victim and object of her lust. Her sexual energy built until the point at which she kisses his mouth. She is left audibly panting in post-sexual-climax exhaustion, with mouth and lips covered with blood. At the end of the opera, Herod orders Salomé to be killed. The scene is usually staged with soldiers crushing the Princess; in this case, the same black slave executioner pulls his sword and Salomé rips open her gown before the blackout.
As one should at a performance of this opera, I felt exhausted and filthy at the end. It is easy to see why the opera caused a scandal at its premiere in 1905 and why it was banned in some cities. Over a hundred years later it is still shocking.
October 7, 2008
Remembrance of Things Past: Turning Pages for Messiaen
Yvonne Loriod and Olivier Messiaen sign autographs at the Cleveland Museum of Art
There are some events that you remember for the rest of your life. One of those occurred for me almost exactly 30 years ago, October 13, 1978, when Olivier Messiaen and his wife Yvonne Loriod played a concert at the Cleveland Museum of Art. I was living on Long Island at the time, but my friend Bruce Shewitz, who was working in the Musical Arts Department of the museum at the time, asked me if I wanted to come back for the concert. Not only that, would I be interested in turning pages for the major work on the second half of the program, Messiaen’s “Visions de l’Amen” for two pianos, which Messiaen and Loriod would perform together. Loriod played Debussy and solo Messiaen (excerpts from “Vingt regards”) on the first half.
Bruce turned for Loriod; I turned for Messiaen. We met briefly prior to the beginning of the concert, Messiaen showed me his tattered score of “Visions.” He did not speak English, and my French was rudimentary at best. But he was cordial.
The performance went off without a hitch, despite my terror of making a mistake. I confess that during the last movement I became lost in the very repetitive music, but the composer carried on. (It was a work that I had heard before, but I had never seen the score before.) About midway through the performance of the 45-minute work, I looked down at the piano keyboard and saw smudges on the keys which I almost immediately determined to be blood. Messiaen had cut himself on the keyboard while he was playing. But he didn’t miss a note.
After the concert, we were in the green room behind the stage, and the composer disappeared. Karel Paukert, Curator of Music and host of the event, went looking for Messiaen and found him, with a damp paper towel, back out on the stage cleaning the blood off the piano keys. Messiaen’s comment was, “It’s a good thing my wife didn’t see it, because she would have stopped the performance.” Lucky for all of us.
After the backstage congratulations and greetings (and clean-up), Messiaen and Loriod spent time in the museum lobby signing autographs. He signed my program, “with thanks to the page turner.” There were pictures taken, which you see above. The Messiaens are seated with their backs to the camera. I am at the far right, with the light-colored suit (and considerably more hair than I have today). Bruce is to my left. Karel Paukert is kneeling in front of Loriod and in the center is Paukert’s (now former) wife Noriko. The only other person I recognize in the picture is (I think) the organ builder Charles Ruggles (with the bald head and beard.)
It seems hard to believe that this was thirty years ago, for Messiaen’s 70th birthday tribute. This year we celebrate his 100th anniversary. On November 2nd, I’ll be playing a recital at my church (Euclid Avenue Congregational Church in Cleveland) including three of Messiaen’s more austere organ works in his memory and honor: Apparition de l’Église Éternelle, Monodie, and Chants d’oiseaux (from Livre d’Orgue).
October 5, 2008
Cameron Carpenter’s “Revolutionary” CD
So what does one do when one is a twenty-something organist graduate of Juilliard, has already learned all of Bach’s organ works, as well as a lot of other standard repertoire and other goodies such as the almost impossibly difficult Demessieux Six Etudes for Organ? If you’re Cameron Carpenter you set about to re-make the organ as a concert instrument for the 21st century and to market yourself as a rock-star organist bad boy. His debut CD on Telarc, “Revolutionary” is bound to piss a lot of people off. (My hunch proved corrected when I glanced at the buyer comments in the iTunes store for this release. Such hostility, which used to be reserved for kindred spirit renegade organists of an earlier generation such as Virgil Fox and Jean Guillou!) Like Virgil Fox, Cameron plays a “virtual organ” in Trinity Church, Wall Street, in New York, built by Marshall & Ogletree. Since it is based on electronics, it has the capacity to “change its skin” and sometimes sound like a theatre organ, as well as a standard church pipe organ.
The bottom line here is that Cameron Carpenter is immensely talented, but the album is not entirely successful. In fact, the title track, Chopin’s Etude, op. 10, no 12 in C minor, “The Revolutionary,” is for me most dependent on its visual aspect, since he plays the arpeggiated “left hand” part entirely with his feet in the pedals. (Somebody at Telarc must have figured that out as well, because there is a Bonus DVD included with the CD that includes Cameron playing the Chopin Etude.) Unfortunately, it has something of the aspect of an astonishing parlor trick. It’s hard to believe that he’s doing it unless you see it.
Happily, most of the rest of the album is much more successful. For me the high point is Cameron’s transcription of the Liszt “Mephisto Waltz No. 1 (The Dance in the Village Inn)”. He makes the piece his own in his organ “orchestration.” The playing is musical, as well as being technically accomplished.
His performance of the last of the Demessieux Etudes (”Octaves”) makes me wish he would record the whole collection. It is performed “straight” without a lot of registrational hanky-panky. Likewise, his performance of Marcel Dupré’s “Prelude and Fugue in B Major, Op. 7, No. 1″ is relatively straightforward.
At the other end of the spectrum is the “Evolutionary” Bach Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565, Cameron’s own concoction including every gloss that other transcribers have ever included on Bach’s indestructible warhorse. And I miss the point of the mash-up of Duke Ellington’s “Solitude” with Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze” in a theatre organ style that would make Radio City Music Hall proud. Bach’s chorale prelude on “Nun komm der Heiden Heiland,” BWV 659, is performed almost as if he’s putting us on–after all the hijinks that have preceded this track, he plays in a quasi-historically-informed manner. It is “correct” within an inch of its life. Please, more Liszt!
There are also two of Cameron Carpenter’s own compositions included on the album. The more successful of the two is his “Homage to Klaus Kinski,” with his use of thematic material and the mastery of the colors of the organ. He writes for his own performing skills as well. It probably makes quite an effect in live performance.
The is not a perfect album; there are parts of it that I find self-indulgent and irritating, but that’s okay. I wish that more organists would take these kinds of risks in programming and performing. It’s possible to do that even without having Cameron Carpenter’s amazing technical skills. Organists wonder why the organ is dying; as is evidenced by the audience reaction when I heard Cameron Carpenter perform in Minneapolis this past June, even the organist-centric world is longing for somebody to capture audiences’ attentions and turn the organ into something viable for the future.
As a postscript, I would note that Cameron Carpenter’s effectiveness as a performer depends in large part on a huge organ with all the modern mechanical conveniences (especially a well-developed combination action–pre-sets that can drastically change registrations with a push of a button.) One has to assume that he would not accept an engagement on an organ such as I play every week–35 stops with completely mechanical action and no combination action. How (or could) he modify is performance style to deal with a less elaborate instrument? It is tantalizing to speculate how it would affect his programming.
One presumes that this won’t be Cameron Carpenter’s last CD. At least I hope not.
September 29, 2008
Wanamaker Organ in all its glory
Today’s New York Times has a review of the big concert in Philadelphia over the weekend celebrating Macy’s 150th birthday and the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ, featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra and Wanamaker organist Peter Richard Conte. The big news was Joseph Jongen’s “Symphonie Concertante” for organ and orchestra in its first performance on the organ (and in the space) for which it was originally intended.
Peter Richard Conte and others (including Virgil Fox) have recorded on the Wanamaker organ, but you really have to be there to get a sense of its power and how it fills the whole store. It’s played every business day by a whole staff of resident organists. If you’re ever in Philly, it’s a tourist destination not to be missed.
