Quartet-playing in a helicopter is the type of a bad idea - bad idea because it is mostly unrealizable, in terms of the logistics (the long negotiations with military and civil authorities required for the first performance), the costs, and the safety of musicians, pilots and spectators underneath. There are also issues relating to the difficulties for four musicians to play their parts in sync, when they are playing in separate locations - granted, the Arditti kids have pulled it off nicely. Lastly (if I am not missing anything), playing well in the narrow space of an helicopter would be complicated if the helicopter were on the ground: here, the helicopter is moving and though, true enough, I never have had a helicopter ride, they sure don't look like they have the smooth stability of airplanes in good weather.
It would be disingenuous to claim the music, as music - the string parts - is bad; indeed, it reminds us that Stockhausen, all through his many experiments (failed or successful), his Dada-inspired antics, his obsessions with electronics, his borrowals from California-Style happenings, his multi-cultural dabblings and New Age mimicry of religious fervor, remained essentially a composer. But it isn't particularly original, either, as it does no more than to hover (no pun intended) in between the world of Ligeti, and the world of 1960's Penderecki, who did not need helicopters, machines or goofy-sounding voices to achieve novelty, as he knew how to wrest new sounds out of these old instruments, - violins, violas, and cellos. Perhaps Stockhausen's gimmicks and experiments of the 1960's and beyond were reflective of a desperate effort at re-enacting the creativity and the originality he had attained during the glory days of Integral Serialism and of Gruppen - a creativity and an originality that subsequently have often eluded him.
As I was timing out the piece, I was thinking how this piece isn't really all THAT bad,... I think I would like to have heard only the string parts though. I think it would have worked that way, if KHS just did it as 'Impression' rather than as 'Fact'.
The whole trajectory of the piece is interesting... I recall doing a really stupid art project, but, once I got into the actual IDEA of it (this SQ came from a dream), it became as this piece,... tailored to its own specifications. Still, it seems a lot of work for pure vanity, no? As an ACT, it is impressive, as you say, logistically, but, as 'music' (or... whaaatever) it does seem to be lacking. My mother overheard...mm... not good!!
I might not wait another three years to listen again!
