Track Listing

1. On The Transmigration Of Souls

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21728 in Music
• Released on: 2004-08-31
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
This is the first recording of Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls (which won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in music), by the orchestra and conductor that commissioned and premiered it. Adams grips from the start, with a slow buildup of taped mundane city sounds, the obsessively repeated word "missing" superimposed on them. The taped texts are drawn from fragments found on missing person posters, newspaper memorials, and the names of victims of the 9/11 attack. Sometimes the taped voices dominate; at others, the chorus intones the texts; the orchestra an ever-present commentator, its impressionistic harmonies fulfilling Adams’ description of creating a "memory space" where each listener can find a personal response to the events. The orchestra erupts in an overwhelming climax after the words "I wanted to dig him out," managing, in a brief passage, to encompass anger, deep grief, and the enormity of the tragedy. Then it subsides into a long, slow decrescendo overlaid by the quiet recitation of names, as if the souls of the title hover over us. Adams has created music for his time and place that fulfills music's ability to move us. --Dan Davis

Miami Herald, Lawrence Johnson, July 1st, 2007
The first and still finest work to emerge from the horrors of 9/11, John Adams' 25-minute ''memory space'' interweaves music, choral waves, ambient New York street sounds and the words of victims and family members into a hypnotic, heart-breaking yet transcendent meditation on loss.

Customer Reviews

A Gimmicky Work That Manages To Move the Listener
I've always been of the opinion that all's fair in art; the contempt for this work displayed here by certain reviewers thus rings hollow. I'm also at a loss in understanding why the mere fact that it was a commissioned work should have a bearing on its merits as a listening experience. What The Transmigration of Souls manages to do is elicit a recollection of the "emotions of the moment" that surfaced in the aftermath of that horrible day coming up on seven years ago. As a sonic remembrance of the victims, heroism, and sudden personal losses; I think it's a perfectly fine piece that serves its purpose well enough. As a work of absolute music, it's probably found a bit wanting.

The use of an overlapping collage of spoken voices throughout the 25-minute work probably comes across as gimmicky to musical purists, but I found similar "musical" exercises in works by the likes of Stockhausen and others to lend a moving immediacy to the music. I think it works here as well.

It's difficult to recommend purchasing this CD at full price with less than a half-hour of content, but hearing it at least once will not be a waste of anyone's precious time -- I borrowed it from the library.

Moving
I am not one of those people to praise modern music if it sounds like mindless noise. When I first found this CD, I had already read about it in the AJC (Atlanta Journal-Constitution), and so I went to get it for myself. When I first heard it, I was not sure what to think. I was moved, almost to a point that I felt uncomfortable with, and subsequently put the disc away for over a year. When I finally pulled it out again and gave it another try, I felt though I was in the exact "memory space" John Adams was trying to convey. The music is haunting in a way that is unique to this matter. I am moved by music of all eras, but this piece is very special in how the simple lyrics (the missing persons signs) and the large orchestration collide to form a unique experience. Many people have scoffed at the piece, calling it trash, but those who really give it a try will be more than rewarded for it. I really enjoy this piece.

Transcendent, yet deeply moving as well
After the events of 9/11, composers had two choices, it seemed. They
could write Wagnerian sturm und drang, patriotism uber alles-type pieces,
or they could be transcendent and sympathetic at the same time. Mr. Adams
has taken the latter course, and it's no wonder he earned the 2003 Pulitzer prize for this work, largely one of contemplative
reflection on that tragic day, interspersed with a bit of Sibelian and
Ivesian orchestral color. Adams uses collage techniques to great effect
in the piece, interweaving the street noises with the readings of victims'
names, punctuated by NYPO principal trumpeter Philip Smiths' mournful,
questing solo. The real highlight comes when the orchestra and choruses
erupt in a Finlandia-meets-Dies Irae moment at the words "Light! Day!
Sky!" punctuating the horrors of that fateful day with searing fury,
then just as quickly fading back into a respectful, quiet space, a
poignant abscheid to a day hopefully not to rear its ugly head again.