One morning, the late Karlheinz Stockhausen awoke from a dream that told him to take to the sky. Stockhausen envisioned four helicopters swirling in the clouds, with each of a quartet’s members tucked inside his own chopper, communicating through headsets, stringing away in sync to the rotor-blade motors. He immediately set forth to make that dream a reality. In 1995, Dutch film director Scheffer followed Stockhausen in the days leading up to the premiere performance of his Helicopter String Quartet in Amsterdam. The resulting film offers a rare glimpse of Stockhausen as he patiently dictates every agonizingly detailed measure to the Arditti Quartet.
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Irvine Arditti
Graeme Jennings
Garth Knox
Rohan de Saram
Score: 5.6
Score: 0.0
Score: 7.5
Score: 6.1
Score: 7.4
Score: 8.3
Score: 5.0
Score: 0.0
