On The Transmigration of Souls

On September 10, 2001 most Americans went to bed. It was a Monday night near the start of the school year. Only a terrorist organization and 19 men who had planned to hijack four different planes the next day had any idea the momentous event that was about to occur.

For weeks, the news throughout the USA was dominated by the events of Tuesday September 11. During that time, Barber's Adagio for strings was routinely played at Concerts as a memorial to the dead. No matter what the occasion, the national anthem was performed at the start of almost every event.

A year later, as a means of commemorating the dead, the New York Philharmonic premiered a composition they had commissioned from John Adams. The title of this work: On the Transmigration of Souls. It had such an impact that it was awarded a Pulitzer prize.

What is so ironic about Adams choice by the Philharmonic to be the composer to write the work, is that his reputation had not completely recovered from the public ill will towards his Opera The Death of Klinghoffer (in fact, as mentioned earlier, Adams was in London at the time of the terror attacks recording The Death of Klinghoffer for the BBC. The project was suspended i memoriam for the dead, but eventually it was finished and the movie version of the opera was aired.)

This work employs a great deal of modernistic techniques, ranging from quarter tones, to audio recordings. A chorus is employed as well. Despite this apparent conglomeration of disparate parts, the work has a powerful effect. It aims to tell a story. It is the story of a country that prepared for a normal day, only to be stunned by news that terrorists would fly planes into three different buildings, killing 3,000, and causing billions of dollars in damage.

This work attempts through these modernistic techniques to recreate the horror and despair that occurred in the cities of New York and Washington D.C. Instead of using experimental techniques as a means of creating sounds and timbres, it uses these techniques to convey emotions.

This is what makes Adams such an important figure in American music. This story is not a story of just the USA. It is a story that involves every nation of the world, since nationalities of many countries of the globe were lost that day. It is a story that tells of an attack on the freedoms that people emigrated to this hemisphere to enjoy. Not only does the US consist of immigrants who came to find political asylum from regimes that frowned upon them, but also all of the other countries that are on both American continents. To further emphasize the Americaness of this work, it happened in a city (New York) which for generations had symbolized among immigrants as their opportunity to live a new dream: the American dream.

In fact, this work goes beyond just being American to Universal in nature. It tells the story of the struggles of all the peoples of the earth, since again, countless ethnicities were represented among the dead that day.
In class the last two days, we have discussed a great deal about the New York school of composers, in particular, John Cage. One must ask why is it that individuals as ingenious as Cage and Morton Feldman were considered minor composers (some would not consider Cage a musician at all) whereas Adams, who clearly utilized electronic multimedia in his compositions and other modernistic techniques pioneered by other composers mentioned in class, yet has remained immensely popular?

In my last Blog post, I mentioned that Cage was a man who exemplified postmodern music because of the methodology he employed. Yet while his methodology does exemplify postmodern thought, his problem was being unable to relate his philosophy in such a way that the audiences could understand and appreciate his methodology.

Adams writes music that utilizes these techniques but that does so in such a way as to connect with the audience. Cage, Feldman, and Parch were very much of the innovator vein, but they were so caught up with the innovation aspect of their music , that they neglected the fact that their innovations needed to be organized in such a way as to make it intelligible for the audience. The obvious lack of popularity of their music among concert goers attests to this fallacious thought tendency on their part.

Let me be clear on this point: while I do criticize these composers for their lack of interest in the audience and making music accessible to the general public, I do wish to commend them on their efforts. Much of their work is highly noteworthy, without which a composer such as Adams would not have been able to write music that he did. Yet, at the same time, it is because of Adams desire to relate to the audience, and not only audiences in this country, but also throughout this hemisphere, that makes his music both today and for the future, American to the core, and why Parch, Cage, and Feldman will be remembered as innovators to the core.