Volumina is a revolutionary organ work that flung open the doors to the radical sonic experiments of the post-war avant-garde. The work is infamous for its extreme demand on the physical capabilities of organs at the time: in the rehearsals for the first performance, the fuses for the air pump kept breaking and even caught fire. Following the massive orchestral sounds of Ligeti’s better-known work Atmosphères, Volumina builds its own glacial-sized masses of sound and noise, matching the scale and grandeur of the cathedrals that house it.
Volumina begins with the organ pump turned off, all the stops pulled and as many keys as possible pressed by the hands and feet. The motor is then turned on, letting the sound slowly rise as pressure of the air builds up sufficiently to sustain the full sound of the full organ. Clusters remain the primary musical element of the piece, which grow and shrink, emerge and submerge, and freeze, crack and sublimate.
Volumina uses a graphic score, where rather than a staff with notes and rhythms, one finds geometric shapes, patterns, and detailed written instructions for the hands and feet which tell the performer what to do. Ligeti asks for various changes of registrations (adding or removing different sets pipes) and a variety of playing techniques: solid sustained chords, rapidly repeated notes, and staccato hits, to create an evolving and ever-changing sound density, texture, and colour. He also asks for an extended technique where stops are pulled half-way out, providing insufficient air pressure to those pipes, and which results in weak-sounding, out-of-tune notes and false harmonics – what he would later call a “consumptive organ”.
I first listened to Volumina during my few years of studying organ in high school and it had an immense impact on my budding interest in new/newer music and a lasting inspiration for my approach to listening and performing. Never before had I heard a work that struck me on so many levels: the opacity and physicality of its architectural structure, the visceral impact and drama of its massive volume and density of sound, the musicality of its evolving shapes, and detailed timbres and textures. Ligeti sought out the maximal range of expressive possibilities of the instrument and shaped them with the finest precision and craft. This inspired me in my own exploration: to seek with curiosity the limits of my physical and expressive abilities, to find more nuanced and refined colours to add to my sonic palette, and to strive to create music with the same multi-dimensional impact that Ligeti’s work does.
While I never played Volumina (and no longer play the organ), the piece contributed to my interest in exploring the possibilities of other keyboard instruments besides the piano. Most notably I went on to study the harpsichord, which stemmed from a desire to play Ligeti’s later work, Continuum. As a follow up to Volumina, I would definitely recommend listening to Continuum, and well as Ligeti’s two organ études, Harmonies and Coulée.
