Chopper City

In my German class this summer, we were asked to present on an influential figure tied to Deutschland - and I chose Stockhausen. Obviously.
My classmates (though wonderful) were perhaps not people, um, steeped in the classical music tradition, and it took a good bit of talking to convince them Stockhausen was even a real person - much less an influential person. On the other hand, part of that was my own fault: shouting "Hubschrauber!" and miming a cello probably wasn't the most coherent way to introduce the Helicopter String Quartet (1995). I was just so excited about it, guys!

Here we are now after the fact, and Ubuweb just posted a documentary showing bits and pieces of "Helikopter Streichquartett" rehearsals and performance with the Arditti Quartet. Four string players in four different helicopters with the music piped down to the audience below - apparently the idea came to Stockhausen in a dream. This documentary is fascinating.

(CD at Amazon)

Dancing Bears, Painted Wings / Things I Almost Remember

Stockhausen composed his Tierkreis (twelve pieces on the signs of the zodiac) for a limited edition series of music boxes - THEY EXIST. (In fact, there's quite a story behind when and how they were made: here.)

Any way you hack it, you'd better not be expecting spinning ballerinas and "The Blue Danube" when you open this lid...

My Wings Are Broken And So Is My Hair

(If that's not enough for you, here are eight more cartoons about Stockhausen.)