Volumina
I forgot to mention that, at the end of my talk on Monday evening, a gentleman in the audience who is apparently a regular reader of this blog asked if I was aware of that composer György Ligeti had written a piece of music called Volumina inspired by the Big Bang. I was indeed aware of this piece, and have a recording of it, but his question gives me the excuse to post a version here. I’m sure at least some of you will have heard some of it before, in fact, as an excerpt featured in the original radio series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy which I listened to on the wireless many moons ago.
You might find Volumina a bit perplexing, but I can tell you that in surround sound with the volume up it’s absolutely amazing. My neighbours clearly agree, and were banging on the wall last night to show their appreciation.
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In the Dark 
March 15, 2012 at 11:04 am
Thanks for putting ‘Volumina’ on your blog. At your talk I mentioned it as musical representation of the Big Bang. It belongs to Ligeti’s early period of extreme works written to ‘get noticed’. A colleague of mine at RWCMD had the temerity to play the first performance in the UK back in the ’70’s. Needless to say, recordings can not do justice to the acoustics of a large church. The piece has become notorious for blowing up many organ consoles around the world. So the effect can be of a Big Silence rather than a Big Bang. Most modern keyboards are designed for a maximum polyphony of four or six hands (say 32 notes) so when someone starts putting lead weights of the keyboard to press more than 32 notes the electronics go into melt down !
Apart from having his work pinched without his permission for ‘2001 – a space odyssey’, can I recommend the much later Piano Etudes which are amazing to listen too nd almost impossible to play ?
March 15, 2012 at 9:53 pm
I seem to remember reading that William Herschel used weights on an organ keyboard to impress the assessors when he was demonstrating his suitability for a job as an organist in a prestigious chapel, in competition against another musician. It may have been when he moved to Bath.
March 15, 2012 at 1:20 pm
I’d love to hear Volumina played live on a proper organ. It must be a wonderful experience.
I have a pretty complete Ligety collection on CD. I recall one of the piano etudes in particular called the Devil’s Staircase which looks like you would need four hands to play it.
Incidentally, I’ve blogged about Ligety before:
https://telescoper.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/lontano/
https://telescoper.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/artikulation-2/
https://telescoper.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/lux-aeterna/
https://telescoper.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/le-grand-macabre/