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The Helicopter Quartet came to composer Karlheinz Stockhausen in a dream. An exhilarating mix of skittering strings and rhythmic rotor blades, the piece was given its world premiere by Stockhausen, the Arditti String Quartet and the Grasshoppers Show Team in June 1995.
The work calls for one string quartet, four helicopters and crews, four aerial sound technicians, four video transmitters, twelve audio transmitters, an auditorium equipped with four towers of television screens and loudspeakers, a sound projectionist with a mixing console, and a moderator.
Although the musicians cannot hear each other while airborne, the group can more or less play in tandem by means of a synchronized click-track fed through each player's headset.
The studio version of "The Helicopter Quartet" exceeds the live performance by three minutes, which means that this glorious racket lasts for 31 minutes and 51 seconds. |
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