Cameron Carpenter - All You Need is Bach (2016) CD-Rip

Like many purveyors of shock, organist Cameron Carpenter trades in several kinds. The Liberace-like image may grab some looks but is of relatively little importance in the end. The title of the album, All You Need Is Bach, hints at a pop influence that isn't really there. The packaging and the notes emphasize Carpenter's instrument, the International Touring Organ. The name gives you the wrong idea of its importance; its portability is unusual, but not unprecedented, and Carpenter plays other organs besides. What's groundbreaking here is the organ's digital component, weaving together sounds of a variety of organs from the past, and even more so the tuning flexibility this digital component imparts. The booklet has some rather labored arguments for what Carpenter is doing, but eventually gets to the nub of it: "there exists the ability to instantly re-temper the organ to the key of whatever work is to be played, thus conforming the organ to the music rather than the opposite." Some sampling is necessary to appreciate the full implications, but start with the delicate tracery of the Trio Sonata No. 1 in E flat major, BWV 525 (track 15), which emerges with unusual clarity. Carpenter's organ lacks oomph in full-dynamic-spectrum pieces (isn't that always the way with digital devices?), but its midrange, hornlike stops are remarkably brilliant. Even if Bach generally fares best in the surroundings where his music grew, there is nothing wrong with experimentation, and this one, among the various new approaches, hits on one that has something to add.