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.
This documentary shows the mindset of the some of the most original and influential artists of the experimental scene (Coil, Current 93, Foetus, Test Dept.). An unprecedented insight into the workings, the methods and the ideas that made these names legendary. Filmed in Hamburg, Amsterdam and London, 1985-1987.
A brief overview and focus on composers Philip Glass, Julia Wolfe, John Cage, Steve Reich, Elliott Carter and their contemporaries.
