Michael Hart
Organic by Thomas May
Going
Genre-busting organist Cameron Carpenter
Blame it on Stravinsky. Explaining why he opted against using the organ in his Symphony of Psalms, the composer complained that “the monster never breathes.” His notorious putdown may have only mirrored a larger bias fashionable in the heyday of modernism. Still, as a revered musical icon, Stravinsky condemned the organ in a
first important religious celebrity of the new mass media era,” as the composer describes her. The piece represents one among an extraordinary range of fresh commissions intended to take advantage of the renaissance of pipe organs that have sprouted up in newly built or renovated concert halls during the past twenty years. “The organ is like an orchestra in itself,
The Nashville Symphony’s Martin Foundation Organ in Schermerhorn Symphony Center will be featured in the world premiere of an organ concerto by Roberto Sierra and other works during the American Guild of Organists’ convention this July.
Bill Steber
The “king of instruments” makes a comeback with orchestras. way that reverberated through much of the latter half of the 20th century. A similar attitude can still be encountered among those who write off the instrument as the concern of a specialist, even fringe constituency. Yet recent trends indicate that the organ is earning a rediscovered sense of respect—and creating musical pleasure—in concert halls across America. In February, for example, California’s Pacific Symphony and Music Director Carl St.Clair gave the world premiere of Michael Daugherty’s organ concerto, The Gospel According to Sister Aimee, which dramatizes the life and career of early-twentieth-century evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, “the
so in effect a concerto is like writing for two orchestras,” says Daugherty. “Yes, this is the king of instruments, but it can produce delicate sounds, too. You can get hundreds of different timbres from a great organ.” He adds that concerts of original music presented by his students at the University of Michigan have increasingly featured the organ. The soloist in Daugherty’s concerto was Paul Jacobs, who last year became the first musician to win a Best Instrumental Soloist Grammy Award for a disc of solo organ music with his interpretation of Messiaen’s Livre du Saint-Sacrement. A performer who is equally compelling in solo recitals and orchestral settings, Jacobs plays a significant symphony
spring 2012