I suppose the pipe organist has even less to bring, but she certainly plays the largest instrument.
But is bigger better?
Pipe organs may also be the most expensive instruments, because some of them cost millions of dollars. And then there's the upkeep.
I have attended pipe organ concerts in Newcastle, Sydney and Bathurst where very few others joined me. I even went to Simon Preston's concert in Sydney entirely on my own, because I couldn't talk anyone else into tagging along.
They are linked so inextricably with churches, it is hard to think of them without religious overtones.
Though we once noticed that a young lad from western Queensland had a different point of view: We were attending a convocation service for Kenmore Christian College, the former Queensland Churches of Christ college, in the Ann St, Brisbane, Presbyterian Church. Many of our students did not regularly attend churches with pipe organs.
As the organist played before the service, I was thinking pious thoughts ... or trying to. But a young lad suddenly exclaimed, quite loudly: Oo, this sounds like Boris Karlov's coming! I was thinking of heaven, but Robert was imagining a horror movie.
Cameron Carpenter would like us to enjoy the music of the pipe organ on its own terms, and not confine it to the four walls of a church. His brilliant performances show that it is a marvellously flexible instrument and can be used to make a sensuous recreation of Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune just as well as it can be employed playing Bach, or even Rufus Wainwright.
Check out Cameron's terrific version of Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride.
