On the Transmigration of Souls
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CD Details
Edition: Music CDCD Release Date: 2004-08-31
Music Label: Nonesuch
Soundtracks:
- On the Transmigration of Souls
Music reviews of On the Transmigration of Souls
Music Review: A cathartic piece which ultimately rewards the listener with hope.
Rating: 4 Stars
There are a number of comments on this work expressing irritation--calling it "gimmicky" but allowing for its emotional impact, or expressing frustration and declaring it fruitless.
I found it intensely personal--it brought me back to the senselessness of the day and the utter and almost unbearable loss. I don't share any of the sentiment of some that the quotations and moral have lost (or will lose) their impact over time. For me, it was just another example of how John Adams is the greatest living composer. This is perhaps the most daunting commission a composer could face, and the result is, put simply, transcendent. If not evocative of a universal truth defiant of stupidity and hatefulness. If not triumphant. The "bricolage" approach would appear to be reflective of the disjointed nature of the aftermath, and of the failure of knowledge systems to withstand the unthinkable--yet somewhere in there is this tragedy and this rising above.
It is cathartic but intensely intelligent--perhaps the greatest tribute I've seen to those lost in 9/11. A little on the pricey side for a (very) short CD, granted. Recommended nonetheless.
Description of On the Transmigration of Souls
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 DavisGeneral CDs
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