Cameron Carpenter: Orgel virtuos

Brucknerfest Linz 2026. With his arrangements of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" and Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune as well as improvisations on Bruckner's themes, organ virtuoso Cameron Carpenter pulls out all the stops.

There are those who perfect their craft to the very limits of perfection. And then there are those who dare to even push these boundaries. One of these few is Cameron Carpenter. In his arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach's 'Goldberg Variations', one of the most popular and complex works for keyboard instruments ever, he deconstructs, intensifies and transcends the seemingly familiar, flying virtuosically between the manuals and dancing light-footedly on the pedal: "[The work] is the essence of musical perfection," says Carpenter, "and reminds us [...] of our imperfection and mortality." Perfection is also required by Leo Sowerby's Pageant, an impressive spectacle in the literal sense of the title, with both feet flying over the pedals in the leading role. This is contrasted by Claude Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, which is far quieter but all the more colorful, before Carpenter concludes the program with an improvisation on themes by Anton Bruckner, paying homage to the festival's namesake.