The Fall from grace

The fourth Festival of Science was held at Rome’s Parco della Musica in January. There were 28,000 spectators over the four days of the event. On the Sunday 18th, the cosmic masterpiece of Karlheinz Stockhausen litererally took off. Organized by the Musica per Roma Foundation, for the first time in Italy: The Helicopter Quartet by Stockhausen, was played by  four musicians and four helicopters, which circled over the domes of the Auditorium. It was an unusual and spectacular performance, the realization of one of the most visionary dreams of Stockhausen, who had always wanted to defeat the force of gravity, experimenting the space element in his music. On board each helicopter there was a member of the Arditti Quartet (two violins, viola and a cello)....