'Mighty Morton' to show off its pipes in concerts with organist Cameron Carpenter
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The Ohio Theatre’s famed “Mighty Morton” pipe organ is set to get a workout.
The organ is used throughout the annual CAPA Summer Movie Series, but performances outside of the film series are relatively rare.
Enter organist Cameron Carpenter.
This weekend, the acclaimed 41-year-old organist will be front and center for a concert with the Columbus Symphony.
“The ‘Mighty Morton’ Organ Festival,” set for Friday and Saturday in the Ohio Theatre, will feature Carpenter, a Pennsylvania native and resident of Berlin, Germany.
What will be performed?
During the concerts, Carpenter will be heard on solo passages in French composer Francis Poulenc’s “Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani,” one of three works on the bill.
“It’s a typical concerto in that it’s an extended musical statement for one soloist who is, if not against, in some ways juxtaposed to, or with, an orchestra,” Carpenter said.
Then, in the barnburner of the evening, Carpenter will be featured in a performance of Czech composer Leos Janacek’s “Glagolitic Mass,” an epic-sized, seldom-performed work also including the Columbus Symphony Chorus and four vocal soloists.
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“That’s a very unusual piece which is seldom heard,” Carpenter said. “It’s (Janacek’s) major statement, written one year before he died. . . . It’s an enormous work. Really, only Mahler wrote for bigger forces.”
In addition to supporting the other instrumentalists, the organist will have a big solo passage during the “Glagolitic Mass.”
“It’s the first time I’ve ever performed it,” he said. “I’m sure this work is probably being performed somewhere else in the U.S. this year, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
(A third work, Carl Nielsen’s “Masquerade Overture,” will feature the symphony performing on its own.)
Carpenter’s history with the 'Mighty Morton'
Carpenter first played the “Mighty Morton” in a concert with the Columbus Symphony in February 2020, just before the pandemic.
“It’s one of the great American organs,” said Carpenter of the instrument, which was installed at the same time as the Ohio Theatre was built in 1928 and, during its first few years, was used to play music during the presentation of silent films.
Ohio Theatre resident organist Clark Wilson, who has played during the movie series since 1992, said that, before the near-demolition of the Ohio Theatre in 1969, organ concerts were fairly routine.
“They would do always a New Year’s Eve sing-along and then they did special concerts, three or four times a year, bringing in national guest artists to play,” said Wilson, who welcomes the use of the organ in symphony concerts.
“It’s wonderful that the present administration of the symphony does want to use (the organ),” Wilson said. “We’ve got this wonderful powerhouse of an organ that’s so capable of doing this.”
A primer on the 'Mighty Morton'
The Ohio Theatre’s “Mighty Morton” is something of a relic: The instrument, which was constructed by the long-defunct Robert Morton Organ Co. in Van Nuys, California, is notable for remaining in the theater in which it was originally installed.
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“This is one of four identical twin organs that the Morton company built, and it is the only one of those four that’s still in its original home,” Wilson said.
Morton-manufactured organs have a high reputation.
“The Morton company came out of several different incarnations of organ builders in California that stretched clear back into the 1880s, the famous Murray Harris company . . . and also the Los Angeles Art Organ Company, which built the world-famous organ that’s in the Wanamaker’s store in Philadelphia (now Macy’s),” said Wilson, who distinguishes theater organs from church organs.
“Musically, the theater organ, as we call it, was called the unit orchestra in the day,” Wilson said. “It’s concept originally was performing orchestral transcriptions — all the great orchestra literature.”
As for the Ohio Theatre’s “Mighty Morton,” the 35,000-pound organ makes use of over 2,500 pipes, which are hidden behind what resemble box seats in the upper levels of the theater.
A fundraising effort to restore the organ console was recently completed.
“The console itself was subject to a number of different rebuilds and stripping and refinishing and reconfiguring,” Wilson said. “It’s gotten more and more difficult to play, as we have issues with key contacts and stops that don’t work.”
Six hundred fifty individual gifts raised over $141,000, including a major contribution from the Ice Miller law firm. Restoration work is estimated to begin next fall on what will now be called the Mighty Morgan Organ sponsored by Ice Miller.
In the meantime, though, Carpenter is excited to sit back down at this legendary instrument — and is ready to give an encore after the performances this weekend.
“If people want (an encore), then, of course,” he said.
At a glance
The Columbus Symphony will perform the “'Mighty Morton' Organ Festival with Cameron Carpenter” at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the Ohio Theatre, 39 E. State St. Tickets start at $9.84. For more information, visit www.columbussymphony.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Mighty Morton Organ Festival with Cameron Carpenter set for Fri-Sat
