All the Stops

He is considered the organ’s rock star, colourful, extravagant, brilliant and gifted with enormous versatility: the American organ virtuoso Cameron Carpenter is one of the biggest stars on the international soloist jet set, taking the organ from church to concert hall – and demonstrating throughout his world-spanning career that the »king among instruments« has plenty of surprising, little-known facets.

Indeed, the arrangement of Sergei Rachmaninov’s rhapsody on a theme by Niccolò Paganini, the »devil’s violinist«, offers the soloist no hiding place. In Camille Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony, the sound of more than 5,000 pipes (so richly is the organ at Cologne’s Philharmonie endowed!) merges with that of the orchestra in a triumphant apotheosis. The composer wrote about this work: »Here I have given everything I had to give … I will never write anything like it again.« In other words: it’s just the ticket for an exceptional artist such as Cameron Carpenter.