One, two, three... Ready!
30 31, 32...
1, 2,
3 4 5 6,
7, 8 9, 10,
11, 12, 13 14...
One!
Two!
Three!
Four!
Five!
Six!
Seven!
- Eight! - Nine!
- Ten! - Eleven!
Twelve!
Thirteen!
l don't have any philosophy,
but all my life l've dreamt
that l can fly,
and that l know what it means to fly.
ln lots of dreams
l leave earth.
l often dream
that l'm in a cellar,
surrounded by people in tuxedoes,
holding drinks in their hands,
and l know l could shut them all up in one go.
They don't want me there.
Then l'm on tiptoes and l let myself go,
l just take off and l end up on the ceiling.
And then...
l swoop down to the floor and fly up again,
and everyone says, ''Oh!''
Then l turn elegantly at the wall.
l dream that the people are all speechless,
watching me, a man, fly.
Or l dream that l'm flying over mountains.
That's a classic.
My music has shown it from the start.
ln the studio l close my eyes,
l have my hand on the fader,
and l try to form the sounds.
l send them through the speakers
like a bird flying.
That's not a philosophy,
more like a primitive dream
to make the music fly because l'm flying.
Three!
Four!
Five!
Six!
Seven!
One..
My dear Jan,
what a long way you've come! lt's amazing!
And you have so much work to do!
Thanks a lot.
Hello, everyone.
Action!
lt's nice and cool here.
Since...
my first works,
the 4-channel Song of the Youths,
and Groups for Three Orchestras,
l've composed the musical space
around human beings.
The sounds come from every direction,
and circle around the people in rotation.
With Groups..., the orchestras are all around.
Then, with Carré for four orchestras and four choirs,
the four conductors have their backs against the wall,
and the audience are looking into the middle,
in rings.
The choirs and the orchestras...
are placed
across 270 degrees.
You hear the music all round.
Contacts
is electronic music with piano and percussion on stage.
You're in total contact with a circle of speakers.
lt's an idea l developed
in the music l wrote before the Helicopter String Quartet.
lnvasion, for example,
which you can play outside a concert hall.
ln the hall l make ''octophonic'' music.
We have a cube of speakers, 1 4 metres high,
with a square of speakers above the audience,
and a square at the audience's level.
The sounds go diagonally at the same time,
and at different speeds,
or turn in spirals,
or in unequal circles.
Then there are musicians,
with speakers tied to them,
who move around to the right and left of the audience,
in front and behind.
The work is called lnvasion.
lt only lasts 70 minutes.
lt was the first time a work had taken into account a space
outside a concert hall, while being musically relevant.
And now, a piece that flies away, literally.
l want to make spaces a part of it,
not simply the spaces of the town and countryside,
but all the spaces on the planet.
Using long-range transmissions, visual and acoustic,
we can conquer space
with flying objects,
so music is everywhere
that musicians are.
The latest technology can link us to them.
Seven...
Ten...
Thirteen...
ls this your first string quartet?
lt's the first and probably the last!
All my life, l've never composed anything
for a classical formation.
ln fact...
The string quartet is a prototype from the 18th century.
Just as the symphony and the solo concerto
are the stamp of a very particular era
in composition,
both as regards interpretation
and form.
All my life l've kept away from that.
l haven't taken up the classical forms.
l'm a pianist but l've never written a concerto,
and l've refused commissions for concerti for violin or piano.
The same goes for symphonies and quartets.
This quartet is the result of a dream.
When the work was commissioned, l said, ''No way, never!''
Then l dreamt it.
And that's when everything changed,
because l started imagining the four musicians flying,
playing in a completely different room.
The show is put on for an audience
sitting in a concert hall.
They imagine the musicians in the air,
playing in four flying objects.
ln the future, they could be in flying objects
that go up even higher.
Accelerando.
Like with going to the moon, you have to rehearse.
Don't just assume that everything will be fine on the 25th,
that the 12 transmitters will work.
lf we haven't done tests,
then we're taking a great risk, and it could be embarrassing.
Like when a rocket doesn't take off.
lt'd be embarrassing if people came
after seeing the advertising,
and it didn't work.
We have to get to Deelen aerodrome.
Or elsewhere.
We should be able to test it beforehand in a helicopter,
with all the equipment.
lf we don't have enough money to equip all four helicopters,
we'll take the same equipment.
They told me there were other helicopters,
different from the concert ones.
l said the turbines were too powerful.
We'd just hear a buzz all the time and not the rotors.
l saw them play
and it was as if l was seeing double.
ln the helicopters,
even though l knew they were in different helicopters,
l was able to control them all, from the inside.
Also, inside the hall, on the four monitors,
on the columns of screens,
we could see each musician multiplied
like in shop windows
or at the World Expo.
When monitors are piled up like that
and images are repeated,
it creates a different effect.
Since the repeated images are all the same,
you're more attentive to what is actually happening.
lt's engraved in your mind.
l didn't mention that dream to anyone.
lt was so strange...
l thought that if l suggested it,
people would think l was round the bend!
l kept it to myself.
l didn't even tell my family.
Usually, l tell them everything.
The musicians have headphones and hear exactly
10, 9, 8 7,
6, 5 4 3
2, 1 ... bang!
Then it starts and they play for 18 minutes.
lt's very precise. l have the score in front of me.
18 minutes, 36 seconds,
all at the same time.
They all receive the same signal,
the same click track,
then there's a descent,
which lasts from 2 to 3 minutes,
composed to resemble
the descent of the helicopters.
That's the top line, that's the second one,
the third and the fourth.
You can see l've given a colour to each musician.
There's a reason for that.
The score's written in four colours.
l'll show you this page, for example.
At the top it's the first violin, then the second.
The first is in red, the second, in blue.
Then the viola is in green
and the cello's in orange.
The lines cross here,
and that's how they play. l composed it like that.
Here you can really see the trajectory,
so to speak, of the tones,
how, from one octave to the next,
they have to be played glissando.
Below it's the resolution,
and each musician has his voice,
which lets him read out what he has to play.
By analysing it, that's what you'll get.
l want to bring together spaces
with musicians who aren't in the traditional setting,
along the lines
of a violinist on a chair in front of his music stand.
The violinist plays
and the sound around him
spreads out in a space
which is nothing like a concert hall.
How do we manage that? Nobody knows yet.
ldeally, the roof of the concert hall
would open up. Places likes that do exist.
We'd see the stars
and the four helicopters flying.
The theatre manager would announce to the audience
that the quartet was in the sky.
One day, the following thing happened...
l was working in the studio
of electronic music in Cologne. The WDR studio.
lt's a studio with windows
to the east,
overlooking the Rhine, which is about 150 metres from the studio.
There are port buildings.
The studio's windows are ten metres across.
Suddenly Katinka, who was in the studio
with Steven and two technicians, said, ''Look!''
Through the left-hand window
a green helicopter was approaching,
followed by another helicopter, a third and then a fourth.
The four helicopters were flying together,
near the ten-metre picture windows,
over the Rhine, and they flew off to the right.
l thought, ''That's a sign from heaven!''
No one can explain it.
The two technicians cried out,
''That's incredible! Four all together!''
ln any case, it was a supra-rational sign,
or... not irrational,
but a supra-mental confirmation,
that the project would be seen through.
lt's things we can't always explain
that make us carry on.
l spent half the night awake,
thinking what other possibilities there were,
what l could come up with.
l imagined the craziest situations.
Since l was little l've always loved bees.
My uncle had lots of hives.
The buzzing made by lots of bees
is a magic sound to me.
lt's never constant.
l imagined a musician sitting in a cradle of steel wire.
But he couldn't sit in the middle of the bees.
They'd sting his hands and he wouldn't be able to play.
ln my dream that night, a technician had a spray,
which he sprayed all over his hands
so the musician could play.
l had these dreams because of the Helicopter Quartet
that we're going to rehearse today.
l dream more and more of the possibilities
for my music
to include sound happenings
that you obtain
neither with musical instruments nor with the voice,
nor with electronic music.
Two, five, nine...
Twelve.
Twelve. Great!
Twelve, fifteen...
Twelve...
and nine are the sums of the numbers.
You've got 390... 465...
453... and 324.
By adding up the figures on the number plates
you get 12, 15, 12 and 9.
That's wonderful. Four to five, four to three.
- Hello, Bart. - Hello.
- How are you? - Fine.
lt's wonderful.
Hello, Stephan.
l have to explain what it's all about.
These are the four helicopters. Come on.
This is the principle...
lt's important, they're going to take off in an hour.
ln each helicopter there's a camera.
The musician's there, with a music stand.
They're very handy accessories.
Each musician will have headphones, good and tight,
like this.
He'll hear the click track
which will be sent up
to synchronise the musicians.
ln his headphones he hears
the sounds from the mixing desk, another essential accessory,
which will mix his voice
and the mike that'll be fixed to his instrument.
A technician will be near the pilot, facing the pilot,
and he'll mix the sound.
lf the musician wants to bring up the instrument
or his voice, the technician will do it.
The sound will come through his headphones,
but also in the hall where l'll be.
That's very important.
The headphones are important,
as is the mike fixed to the instrument.
You can't see it there.
And now...
After several tests, we put the mike here.
lt'll record the sound of the blades.
At first, we put it there,
but we put it here because the results are better.
For 45 years l've been continually trying
to introduce into music
the sounds we hear every day,
and then making music of them. lt's a dream.
The whole world will become music.
lt ought to be possible.
Oliver, they let you in! Were you on the list?
You're very pale. Are you ill?
The flu? But look at the sun up there!
Up here you have four systems,
and four down below, too.
ln the top system, the black notes indicate
a formula, or the beginning of a formula.
What l call a link.
l'll sing it faster
than the metronomic indication here.
We're at point zero here.
The first part, to here, lasts 23.8 seconds.
l'll sing it faster, in my own voice's range.
That's the top voice. The second...
The third voice.
They were the first voices, and l decided
to switch from tone to tone in the melody.
From the first, for example,
l use the red colour
to link to the third melody.
And l come back to the first,
then a tone to the second, back to the first, the second...
First, second, first, third melody, and so on.
The second colour is blue.
l start with the 1st note of the 2nd melody...
Then it's linked to a note of the upper melody,
and to two notes of the lower one,
then to the upper one, the intermediary...
the upper, the lower...
The 3rd melody is green.
lt goes from the first note of the 3rd melody
to the 2nd note of the upper one.
lt comes back then goes off again.
So that's the green line.
The last line is orange.
lt goes through the tones that l've left open.
lt doesn't have a tune of its own,
but it goes looking for notes from the three others.
So that's the orange line.
lt's like giving presents at Christmas,
and not knowing if they'll work or not,
if they'll make the right noises.
Poor Graeme, he's still playing!
They had to learn - and that was the hardest job -
to prepare, to bring out
and to listen to the melodies
or the formulas of the other musicians,
in order to first of all understand the polyphonic framework.
That took a lot of time.
The point they're at now,
they know who's coming next,
and they're doing crescendos, accelerandos and tremolos.
The tremolos are differentiated.
At first they were all the same.
Now they're like...
The second with accelerandos!
l have to get used
to the fact that, without cease,
the sonic colours and rhythms of the blades
blend in with the instruments.
l've learnt something l hadn't foreseen,
which is that, from time to time you can improvise.
l mean with the four signals from the rotor-blades.
You can bring them up
without, however, drowning out the music,
and it resonates beautifully.
ln the four columns of speakers,
when you get the rotor-blades coming in, like waves,
and you hear them move off again,
as if they were autonomous,
you really hear the movements of the machine in flight.
And what's the result, now,
compared to what you hoped for in your dream?
lt's hard to answer that.
lt's very down to earth.
The monitors are there,
l have to deal continuously with the mixing desk,
the settings and the mikes,
and all of that has become the most important thing.
ln my dream l was freer.
l floated through the air,
l was a creature without a body,
and l could even see through the helicopters.
lt's very strange in dreams,
objects don't always represent...
an obstacle. You can see right through them.
l could, at the same time, watch the earth
and the groups of people, who seemed minuscule,
and l could even hear them and see them.
All that has disappeared.
l'm once again in a concert hall
with black curtains
and four columns of television screens.
As l told you,
l'm surrounded by all the technical material
that makes the project possible.
Right now, l can't commit myself to saying anything
relating to the imagination,
and its transformation via technical means.
The technical aspect has become the main thing.
l think...
we should send the musicians to the helicopters.
Bart, we only want to hear the instruments.
Two!
Seven!
Ten... eleven!
Three!
More! Why are you starting again?
- You told me to! - Go on, start again.
lt's been a symbol of my musical oeuvre
for 45 years.
The thing that isn't played or heard
is the most fascinating thing for me.
For every new work
l wait for a sign, a premonition,
in order to discover in my imagination
that which l've never heard
and that which has never been played before.
New instruments, new sounds,
new combinations, new shapes,
new spaces, new languages...
l've just been working on a choral work
for four months, World Parliament,
in which an artificial language
is sung in several artificial dialects.
And the singers had never spoken those words before.
lt's a new language l developed just for the piece.
That's what l'll continue to do all my life.
For each new departure,
l wait for something inside me
and the means l will use.
Something l've never heard before,
that has never been played, that has never been done.
May my...
Through music, may my spirit continue to develop
in the discovery and invention
of spiritual forms,
and to constantly enlarge the acoustics
of my sonic spaces
and my listening faculties.
May l be able to recognise contexts,
and really discern the layers
and the interactions with my ears.
The eyes often help the ears.
lt's a goal without an end.
l'd really like to have
a body that can do a lot more
than the one l have at the moment.
And l hope that one day l'll have a spiritual body
of which l can demand even more
than my present body with its human senses.
Subtitles by Howard Bonsor
Subtitling by TVS - TlTRA FlLM �