"Intet nytt under solen", Bach er og har vært inspirasjonskilde for svært mange skapende mennesker - uavhengig av kunstform og sjanger. Albert Schweitzer mente alt fører til Bach, i forståelsen at Bach var et vendepunkt som alt pekte frem mot før, og alt i ettertid pekte tilbake til. 

Carpenter is one of the rare musicians who changes the game of his instrument… He is a smasher of cultural and classical music taboos. He is technically the most accomplished organist I have ever witnessed… And, most important of all, the most musical.

— The Los Angeles Times

Cameron Carpenter:  

Orgelets enfant terrible - og Bachs radikale arving

Cameron Carpenter er ikke bare en virtuos organist – han er et kunstnerisk unntakstilfelle, en grenseoverskridende kraft i et felt som ofte preges av konservatisme og ærefrykt for tradisjonen. Med sin blendende teknikk, teatralske tilstedeværelse og kompromissløse musikalske visjon har han redefinert hva det vil si å være en organist i det 21. århundre.

I sentrum av Carpenters musikalske univers står Johann Sebastian Bach – ikke som en uoppnåelig skikkelse på en pidestall, men som en levende kraft, en åndelig slektning og inspirasjonskilde. For Carpenter er ikke Bachs musikk en museumsgjenstand som skal bevares i møllkuler og respektfull distanse, men en organisme som skal pustes nytt liv i, utfordres og til og med elskes med opprørsk inderlighet.

How did you become attracted to the organ? And when did you know that this what you wanted – or needed – to do with your life?

The organ was first an overwhelming force for me visually, when I saw as a tiny child a highly evocative encyclopedia entry showing an organist playing in a movie palace. My later first contact with an organ at age 4 was almost sinister in its power and I was forever ruined to serious dedication to anything else.

With its common association with ecclesiastical and sacred music, do you think the pipe organ is generally not being used to its full sonic potential?

Much more worthy of our attention in and out of church – in my case, particularly out – is the subject of the digital organ, where actual musical revolution is flourishing.

As to sacred music, it's only possible to answer this if we agree that the pipe organ's potential is prima facie limited by its physical immobility, and by its inability to become the centerpiece of an ongoing relationship with its user in any meaningful way (since every organ is completely different). One would think such an inflexible entity would be well-suited to assisting in the maintenance of the churchly status quo, though (perhaps ironically) most churches which fancy themselves"contemporary" – i.e., increasingly conscious of the relationship between God and the dollars of the young – are keen to throw out the organ in the attempt to get hip. All of which proves only one thing: that even in the cheap theatre of church, with its hocus-pocus and its ecclesiastical hobgoblinery, even there, the pipe organ still has a hard time justifying itself.

How do you like the label of "the most controversial organist in the world?" Did you expect to garner a label like that?

Music and art, and the doing of them, are unequivocally worth fighting about, and therefore controversy is inevitable and very much to be used and enjoyed if possible.

As is often the case, people easily offended usually have a need to be, and it might be argued that they enjoy it, too.

- Fra intervju i boca magazine 2013

The Goldberg Variations

On to the Goldbergs, which Carpenter whisks through without repeats, shooting in all directions, heightening the contrasts between the variations. To cite a few examples: The opening Aria seems to come from a misty distance, while Variation 1 comes on almost like a calliope. No. 6 is a murky blur, No. 7 sounds massively-textured and breathless, No. 8 whips by at lightning speed. No. 13 consists of intertwining piccolo-like lines with no sense of pulse at all; No. 19 sounds like a delicate etude for marimbas. The somber No. 25, interminable in some hands (this means you, Lang Lang, whose live piano version is literally three times as long), is so subdued as to be almost inaudible, but Carpenter doesn't wear out its welcome, and the penultimate Quodlibet becomes a grand peroration. This highly idiosyncratic transcription is worth a listen, and I'm pretty sure that you won't be bored.     

- Fra kritiker Richard S. Ginell, Classical Voice

Cameron Carpenter 

The sound of my Life

This documentary covers Cameron's life, his personal and professional career, and the development of the International Touring Organ.

Cameron Carpenter tells his story and describes the long journey to making his ambitious dream a reality.