When I witnessed Cameron Carpenter mastering his International Touring Organ and making this incredible machine come alive in Zurich last Sunday night, I instantly had Chilly Gonzales’ words in mind, when he called The BBC Symphony Orchestra he played with in London 2012 “the world’s most expensive synthesizer”. It was apparently another fulfilled longing to have one of those “synthesizers” all to himself. Carpenter’s digital organ might be even more expensive, the inner urge to create such an instrument, find sponsors and then actually use it, is the same. The obvious connection between the two musicians – apart from their dedication to key instruments – as Chilly Gonzales would put it: They are men of their (and our) time. They have a vision – the vision to take music to the next level. To keep the roots, but cut the weed. To not see music as something written in stone, but something versatile, adaptable and re-inventable as well as re-interpretative.So in an ideal world, these two should work together and as we sometimes like to daydream at SoloGonzales, we already have an idea how: with harpsichordist Christopher Lewis on board in a concert dedicated to “The Evolution of the Keys”. Continue reading
Watch out, Wolfgang!
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Just imagine you were coeval with Händel or Mozart and wanted to listen to some music. You would only be able to choose from a selection of three possibilities at the most: go to a concert hall, make music yourself or in case you had the privilege of noble birth, enjoy it as part of the courtly cultural life. Fortunately, nowadays music is always available and repeatable. Still, it felt as if storage data devices haven’t been invented yet, when Chilly Gonzales played the Kölner Philharmonie on December 29th. He introduced so many new, yet unfortunately unpublished pieces that it was a real treat and indulgence, but at the same time evanescence and the knowledge of singularity were omnipresent. The Faustian verse “If to the moment I shall ever say: ’Ah, linger on, thou art so fair!’” could have been the epigraph to this final concert in 2012. Or was it a pointer to the future and into the direction of “more orchestra”? 