Niin paljon tietoa… (So Much Data…) is a piece for a three-manual organ with manually operative registration. It involves an organist and two assistants who are needed for opening and closing organ stops.
This piece was composed in 2000 for the new organ of the church of Kotka (Finland) which was based on the organ in Freiberg by Gottfried Silbermann (1714). The work was premiered at the opening concert of the Kotka International Organ Competition in November 2002. In 2004, Niin paljon tietoa… reached the final of the International Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition.
The main focus in Niin paljon tietoa… is on creating complex timbral processes of sounds through opening or closing organ stops in slow motion while keys are held down on the manuals. As the air pressure of the organ pipes is gradually released to its full extent by slowly opening the stops, the partials of the tones start to find their place. The reverse happens when stops are slowly closed and the partials die away. Traditionally, the complex noise produced through this procedure is considered undesirable, but in this piece it functions as a major resource. When identical sets of tones are being processed on several manuals at the same time, this opens a huge palette of possibilities for affecting the tone colour. When techniques such as fadings, in-fadings and cross-fadings are applied to large chords or different clusters, the huge mass of sound almost seems to be assuming a physical form, slowly evolving and constantly changing in its colour and shape.
Instrumentation
for organ solo
2000