Cameron Carpenter launched the new Kravis Center organ Wednesday night with American-style pomp and circumstance.
The pomp was in the program he chose and the circumstance was the gala atmosphere surrounding what went on with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra playing alongside this lovable master of the new Opus 11 digital console organ, donated by generous philanthropist Alex Dreyfoos, who dedicated it to his late business partner, George Mergens.
The packed house cheered every carefully worded statement from the lips of the highly articulate Carpenter, a Julliard graduate. I could not help thinking: If this is the future of classical music, play on, give us more of it.
Carpenter is described as a showman. This is not so. He’s an intellectually well-mannered genius with a mission. Granted, his attire and mohawk haircut may suggest the outward trimmings of a showman, but these are the styles young men of talent wear today, to set them apart, show their individuality. The irony of the evening was in the clothing the men wore. Here was a trendily dressed young man (he’s 34), tight trousers, T-shirt, mohawk and shiny boots surrounded by an orchestra whose conductor and male players wore white tie and tails.
The Jacksonville Symphony, founded in 1949, opened the concert with Wagner’s overture to Die Meistersinger, conducted by their new music director, Courtney Lewis, who wins first prize in conducting gymnastics for his overly flamboyant style of flailing arms that continually make grand sweeps which are very distracting. His very tall presence and long tailcoat, seen from the rear, looked like a giant beetle about to devour the orchestra as it moved up and down, in time with his flailing arms. The brass section was overly loud and the first string section, hidden behind the new organ, sounded weak. As it is, they have a hard time fighting the brass in Wagner’s orchestration.
Exit all sections except the strings for Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani. Time for the organ soloist to appear. Like a rock star, he entered to huge audience acclaim. Bowing sincerely and with great dignity, Carpenter proceeded to thank Dreyfoos, who was in the dress circle, and Marshall & Ogletree, the Boston-area makers of the digital organ. He opened with a short solo by J.S. Bach, the Contrapunctus IX from his Art of the Fugue, showing off the new invention and his own dexterity with hands and feet. That finished, orchestra and organist launched into the Poulenc work.
It has been 12 years since we heard Palm Beach Opera give Poulenc’s distinctive masterpiece, Dialogue of the Carmelites, on this same stage. I was looking forward to hearing his Organ Concerto for the first time, but it was disappointing. There were a few exchanges between organ and solo violin, organ and solo cello in the quieter passages that had charm and listenability, but overall it was a poor choice to start with.
Also distracting was the central position of the organ. Playing with his back to the audience, all we saw were two pink ears, the back of a mohawk, a blue velvet jacket and flashing heels of mirrored glass on the back of Carpenter’s boots as he maneuvered the floor pedals. In concert halls, the organ is at the rear of the stage with large convex mirrors placed behind the organ to show the face and hands of the organist at his keyboard.
The finale of Saint-Saëns’s more familiar Organ Symphony (No. 3 in C minor) followed, this time with full orchestral accompaniment. It was magnificent, and so was Carpenter as he combined with the other players, sensitive to their sounds and keeping the organ in check, so as not to become too overwhelming.
At the end the audience roared its approval. I’ve never heard such a ground swell of cheering and bravos from a Kravis audience like this before. But again, the organ blocked the string section. Surely the organ could have been placed in the center of the orchestra; it can be wheeled around from place to place with ease, we were given to understand.
After intermission the vast red curtains of the Dreyfoos Hall stage opened. Seven floor-to-ceiling light pillars surrounded the centrally placed organ with a huge sports-sized screen suspended in midair above the organ. The audience roared its approval again.
Carpenter said a few words about a digital world of the future and proceeded to play an adaptation of the scherzo from Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. The screen lit up; there he was in all his multi-magnified glory, close up and personal, for all to see. This highlighted his finger dexterity on the keyboard and the movement of his legs and feet on the floor pedals (the deep loud bass tones were amazing). Why hadn’t the screen been used in the first half of the program? I thought he took the Scherzo a shade too quickly, sometimes tripping over phrases or cutting them short in his keenness to demonstrate the agility of the machine he was touching.
To remind us of the mighty Wurlitzers once heard in the grand cinema palaces of old, Carpenter showed how its sound could be imitated by this machine with a selection from My Fair Lady. The effect was terrific.
The mellow sounds took me back to hearing Sandy McPherson on the organ of the Gaumont picture place in my home town of Manchester, England, where I was taken as a lad by my father, who strongly believed all cinema organs should be given to churches without them.
Fourteen-year-old Matthew Whitaker, a blind jazz organist and pianist was helped on stage by the star with great care and concern. The youngster was about to show how this digital machine could handle jazz. He began slowly, playing Errol Garner’s “Misty.” At the halfway point, Whitaker tossed off an improvisation that showed the organ’s versatility and his own consummate skill as a young jazz player. A wave from the blind teenager was greeted with huge audience appreciation as he was escorted into the wings.
Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue followed with Carpenter back at the console. One could have heard a pin drop, so attentive was this audience to every note, every nuance of his playing. It meant a lot that he explained what passacaglia meant, telling listeners what to listen for and the moods Bach intended to contrast. As an encore he played Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever.
People came from miles around to hear young Cameron Carpenter shake the very foundations of Dreyfoos Hall with a rollicking, exciting concert from the King of Instruments, and a good time was had by all. Classical music in the hands of this brilliant young player and educator has a future for sure. Let’s call him the Prince of Instrumentalists.