Helicopter String Quartet
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/22/Helicopter_String_Quartet.jpg/220px-Helicopter_String_Quartet.jpg)
Helicopter String Quartet (screen title: Karlheinz Stockhausen: Helicopter String Quartet) is a 78-minute 1996 Dutch English- and German-language independent underground experimental documentary art film directed by Frank Scheffer.
Synopsis
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/Irvine_Arditti%2C_MASP.jpg/220px-Irvine_Arditti%2C_MASP.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/Alouette_III_Grasshoppers_Ramstein_1984.jpg/310px-Alouette_III_Grasshoppers_Ramstein_1984.jpg)
The film, produced by Ton van der Lee , documents the preparations and rehearsals in 1995 for the world-premiere performance by the Arditti Quartet of the 1993 composition Helikopter-Streichquartett (English: Helicopter String Quartet) by Karlheinz Stockhausen. This piece requires four separate helicopters (provided for the 1995 performances by the Royal Netherlands Air Force). Within it, each helicopter carries (in addition to the pilot) one member of a string quartet, a sound technician, television camera, video, and three-channel audio transmitters, and all flying through the air simultaneously. It was premiered at the Holland Festival. The film contains interviews with Stockhausen, the string players Garth Knox, Rohan de Saram, Irvine Arditti, and Graeme Jennings, and the pilots about the piece.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] The film was premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival in October 1996, where it was nominated for several awards, was also screened at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema in April 2005, and was released on DVD by Medici.tv's label Medici Arts.[8]
Reception
[edit]Critic Ben Sachs wrote: "I'm a dunce when it comes to the music, but I found the movie fascinating, in part because the story has so much ready-made suspense. Any number of things could go wrong in the execution of the quartet, and it's entertaining to see how the composer and his crew respond to each problem that arises—it's something of an intellectual action movie".[9]
References
[edit]- ^ Schweitzer, Vivien (13 July 2008). "Fulfilling a Dream With Strings and Rotors". The New York Times. p. AR21. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
- ^ Koch, Dr. Juan Martin (October 2008). "DVD-Tipp: Stockhausen: Helicopter String Quartet" [DVD Review: Stockhausen: Helicopter String Quartet]. Neue Musikzeitung (in German). Vol. 57. Regensburg: ConBrio Verlag. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
- ^ Clark, Philip (December 2008). "Stockhausen: Helicopter String Quartet". Gramophone. Vol. 86. London: Mark Allen Group. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
- ^ Schaefer, John (17 July 2008). "Music to the Extreme". New Sounds. New York, New York: New York Public Radio. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
- ^ Platt, Russell (12 August 2008). "Takeoff". The New Yorker. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
- ^ Bishop, Ryan Marion. "The Force of Noise, or Touching Music: The Tele-Haptics of Stockhausen's Helicopter String Quartet". In: SubStance: A Review of Theory and Literary Criticism, Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40, no. 3, issue 126: Plus d'un toucher: Touching Worlds, 2011, pp. 25–40. JSTOR 41300213 Retrieved 26 March 2018.
- ^ Helicopter String Quartet. In: Holland Film, Amsterdam: Holland Film Promotion, 2000. p. 48. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
- ^ Scheffer, Frank (24 June 2008). Helicopter String Quartet (DVD) (in German). Paris: Medici.tv's Medici Arts. OCLC 237054616. EDV 1333/3077508. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
- ^ Sachs, Ben (15 March 2012). "What's Wrong With Up in the Air?". Chicago Reader. Chicago, Illinois: Sun-Times Media Group. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
External links
[edit]- Helicopter String Quartet at IMDb
- Helicopter String Quartet at Rotten Tomatoes
- Helicopter String Quartet at AllMovie
- Helicopter String Quartet at Discogs (list of releases)
- Helicopter String Quartet Film Trailer on YouTube (Medici.tv's Medici Arts Channel) (in German)
- 1990s avant-garde and experimental films
- 1996 documentary films
- 1996 independent films
- 1996 films
- Documentary films about aviation
- Documentary films about classical music and musicians
- Documentary films about music festivals
- Dutch avant-garde and experimental films
- Dutch documentary films
- Dutch independent films
- 1990s English-language films
- Films about composers
- Films directed by Frank Scheffer
- Films set in 1995
- Films set in Amsterdam
- Films shot in Amsterdam
- 1990s German-language films
- 1996 multilingual films
- Dutch multilingual films
- English-language documentary films