John Adams, On the Transmigration of Souls. CD 11689 

“Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen” spoke Wittgenstein. “Whereof one has been silent, thereof one may have to speak” wrote Herman Tennessen, referencing the older philosopher. The destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 is a subject about which it is dangerous to speak, if one takes the issues it raises seriously. Thus it is all the more surprising that composer John Adams should have created a powerfully-moving and, I believe, lasting work of musical art centered around the tragedy. Aesthetically the danger in treating such a subject that the artistic results can descend to bathos or cheap emotional change-ringing. On the Transmigration of Souls is far from this – it is a piece that is cathartic and sublime. Adams chose not to set a new text “about” September 11, but rather created a verbal frame based on “found” material – missing-persons notices, reminisicences of  those who died by their beloveds, and a partial list of the names of those who died. Among the striking moments in this 25-minute work for chorus (no soloists) and large orchestra is the opening, with a sense of floating uneasily, drifting, perhaps like the dust from the towers carried in the wind, and yet a very American sound which recalls the music of a New York composer of a century ago, Charles Ives. I won’t go on in detail, but suffice it to say that this is already one of the great musical works of the twenty-first century.