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Helicopter String Quartet
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Wikipedia article
'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
, leader of the Arditti Quartet, who premiered and made the first recordings of the 'Helikopter-Streichquartett'
they used in the world premiere of the 'Helikopter-Streichquartett'
The film, produced by , 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.Bishop, Ryan Marion. [https://www.academia.edu/5755516 "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. 2540. Retrieved 26 March 2018.'Helicopter String Quartet'. In: '[https://www.google.com/books?id=I0YbAQAAIAAJ Holland Film]', Amsterdam: Holland Film Promotion, 2000. p. 48. Retrieved 4 April 2018. 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.
Reception
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 arisesit's something of an intellectual action movie".
References
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