4. Toccata - Gipfelpunkte

In the organizer's words:

Summit points

Cameron Carpenter Organ

César Franck
Chorale No. 1 in E major
Johann Sebastian Bach
Goldberg Variations BWV 988

Cameron Carpenter is both a pop star and a bird of paradise. For years, the dazzling organist has been sending audiences around the world into ecstasy with his specially developed traveling organ. But it was irreparably damaged during the coronavirus pandemic. The keyboard virtuoso made his 'Toccata' debut in Duisburg over ten years ago and is now returning to the magnificent Eule organ in the Philharmonie Mercatorhalle after a long absence. However, he remains true to his penchant for the unusual and plays the Goldberg Variations, a work that Johann Sebastian Bach wrote for a two-manual "clavicimbel" - or harpsichord for short. To this day, this enigmatic cycle is one of the pinnacles of piano literature: 30 variations with sometimes horrendous technical demands and an enormous depth of expression, which are based on an "aria" of timeless beauty. Before Bach's masterpiece, as a prelude so to speak, Cameron Carpenter plays one of the three chorales that César Franck composed shortly before his death in 1890 and which are regarded as the highlight of his organ oeuvre. They were originally written for the magnificent organ in the Sainte-Clotilde church in Paris, where Franck was not only Kapellmeister but also organist.