I was eleven years
old when President John F. Kennedy was
assassinated in November 1963 so that
event didn’t make quite the same impact
on me that it would almost certainly
have done if I had been a few years
older. However, I know that many people
older than I still say to this day "I
remember exactly what I was doing when
I heard that Kennedy had been shot."
The dreadful events of September 11,
2001 made a comparable impact on me
and on millions of other people worldwide.
No doubt that was due in large part
to the truly awful nature of what unfolded
that day. The fact that the dreadful
drama was played out in front of a worldwide
television audience magnified its impact
immeasurably.
For me there was another
factor that brought the events home
hard. Just the day before my 20 year-old
daughter had arrived in Manhattan to
visit for a few days. Happily I was
able to contact her within minutes of
first hearing about what everyone still
thought then was a terrible accident.
Over the following anxious days until
she was able to fly home our frequent
telephone calls gave me a small insight
into the impact of the terrifying events
in New York. How unimaginably worse
must it all have been for those bereaved
or injured by the tragedy, those anxiously
waiting for news of missing loved ones
and for those seeking to find, rescue
and tend to the victims?
Whatever one’s stance
on the political and military events
that have unfolded across the world
in the aftermath of 9/11 I doubt anyone
would deny that that day was a defining
one in the modern history of our world.
Equally, the overwhelming majority of
the global population can only have
felt compassion for all those innocent
people caught up in the savagery of
that day.
Now, in response to
a commission from the New York Philharmonic
and the Lincoln Center, financially
supported by an anonymous long-time
New York family, John Adams has produced
a musical response to 9/11. In so doing
he has focused on the innocent victims
of that day. This recording was made
‘live’ at the première and the
series of performances that followed
the first performance. In the past John
Adams has confronted political and controversial
events in his music, most notably in
his operas, The Death of Klinghoffer
(1991), which dealt with the hijacking
of the cruise liner, Achille Lauro
and, of course, in his masterpiece,
Nixon in China (1987). On first
hearings it seems to me that he has
treated 9/11 with the same conviction
and sensitivity that he brought to the
afore-mentioned operas (I’m well aware
that Klinghoffer is a controversial
piece.)
The composition of
this work must have represented a huge
challenge to Adams in all sorts of ways
and I don’t think I’m being trivial
when I suggest that one of the hardest
things must have been to find a suitable
title. How to avoid mawkish sentimentality
or brazen patriotism? The Concise Oxford
English Dictionary defines the verb
transmigrate as: "(Of soul) pass
into, become incarnate in, a different
body." So, it seems to me that
perhaps Adams is suggesting in his title
that the victims of 9/11 have truly
"moved on". But there’s more
to the work than this. In a recent article
in Gramophone magazine the composer
had this to say: "I wanted a cathedral-like
feeling: you’re aware that hundreds
of years’ of souls have passed through
the building but there isn’t any grief
or the horrible stabbing pain of having
lost someone. It’s not about the dead.
It’s about the survivors. It’s about
those who were left behind to struggle
with the obscene incongruity of it all."
I think anyone coming to this extraordinary
piece needs to keep in mind those words
of John Adams for it is surely the key
to why he has chosen to use for much
of his text the words of the bereaved
about their loved ones.
In his enthusiastic
first review
my colleague Neil Horner gives an excellent
overview of the construction of the
work and I refer readers to that. I
find it fascinating that Adams has drawn
on Charles Ives’s movingly elegiac The
Unanswered Question both in the
haunting trumpet solo near the start
of the work and also in the string music
towards the close. Adams, as conductor,
has already given us an outstanding
recording of Ives’ score on his excellent
and provocative 1989 album, American
Elegies (Nonesuch
979249-2), which I enthusiastically
commend to readers. Here I find it genuinely
moving that he should have been so clearly
inspired by the earlier American composer.
Is it stretching things too far to suggest
that at the heart of both works is the
question "Why?"
There are two loud
passages in the piece, the second of
which is a great tumult (between 15’53"
and 19’59") where I suspect Adams
is expressing horror and revulsion at
the waste and injustice of 9/11. For
most of its 25 minutes, however, Transmigration
is quiet and subdued in tone and
for me this restraint just makes the
music all the more effective and moving.
The use of spoken and sung fragments
of words about the victims takes a bit
of getting used to but I think it’s
an appropriate and sincere form of artistic
expression. The last few minutes, in
which a mood of peace and even radiance
is attained, are very affecting.
I have a tape of the
radio broadcast of a performance by
Adams and BBC forces at the 2003 Henry
Wood Promenade concerts. The vast spaces
of the Royal Albert Hall and the attentiveness
of the large audience contributed to
the sense of occasion and atmosphere
but I think this CD recording gets us
closer to Adams’ work. So far as I’m
able to judge, Lorin Maazel directs
an excellent and committed performance
into which the tape of street noises
and speaking voices has been most effectively
interwoven. There’s a very good note,
which sensibly ranges wider than a discussion
just of this one work by Adams and the
English texts are provided. I believe
that the CD is offered at mid-price
to reflect the short playing time; it
would have been an impertinence to include
any other music on the disc.
I have little doubt
that John Adams’ portfolio of compositions
to date includes at least three masterpieces
in the shape of The Wound Dresser,
El Niño and, most of all,
Nixon in China. I am not yet
sure whether On the Transmigration
of Souls is another masterpiece,
nor whether it is a Great Work of Art.
However, my reservation is simply because
the piece has not yet had time to sink
in sufficiently. I think definitive
critical judgements must be deferred
until, after the passage of time, we
have a greater sense of perspective
both about 9/11 and about John Adams’
musical response to it. What I am
sure about, however, is that Adams has
produced a sincere and moving piece
of music, avoiding excess or poor taste
very skilfully indeed. It is a work
that should be heard widely and which
should be listened to very carefully.
It deserves no less.
Neil Horner described
this as an "absolutely essential
disc." I can only concur and recommend
it strongly.
John Quinn
see also review
by Neil Horner
You might also
be interested in
RECORDING
OF THE MONTH John
ADAMS (b.
1947) Short
Ride in a Fast Machine (1986) [4’05"]
The Wound Dresser* (1988) [19’19"] Shaker
Loops (1978, rev. 1983) [25’28"] Ferrucio
BUSONI (1866-1924)
arr. ADAMS
Berceuse élégiaque (1991)
[9’27] 
*Nathan Gunn (baritone) Bournemouth
Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop Recorded
at the Lighthouse Poole Centre for Arts,
UK, 10 – 11 June 2003. DDD
NAXOS AMERICAN CLASSICS 8.559031 [58’20"]
[JQ]
Excellent
performances in good recorded sound
.... an ideal very inexpensive introduction
to one of the most stimulating composers
currently before the public. Well-nigh
ideal. Urgently recommended. ... see
Full
Review
