I normally hate experiments of this kind, but I do have a sneaking admiration for György Ligeti's Poème Symphonique pour 100 métronomes.
The idea is clever, but simple. You take 100 metronomes, wind them all up and set them to different speeds. Then you set them all off at roughly the same time (you'll see a mechanical contraption at work in the film) and let your audience make of it what they will.
There are several things I like about the performance. Firstly, the symmetrical arrangement of the metronomes themselves appeals to my sense of shape. Secondly, it's fascinating to listen as the faster metronomes wind down, allowing you increasingly to pick out the sound of individual 'instruments'. And finally, it's stimulating to listen to the variations in the click, clack, clatter and remember similar sounds: I could pick out the beat of the rain on a split windscreen; the tackety-click of a typing pool in a black and white film; the pattering of boys drumming on desks; someone trampling on polystyrene egg-boxes; and much more.
Enjoy it: it's a lot less disturbing than the video someone has made to accompany Apparitions for Orchestra.
If you are new to Ligeti, your best bet is to get hold of one or more volumes of The Ligeti Project.
