On the Transmigration of Souls
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
On this anniversary of 9/11/01, we bring you John Adams’s “On the Transmigration of Souls,” commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center to honor victims of that day.
“Transmigration,” recorded by the New York Philharmonic, the New York Choral Artists, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus under Lorin Maazel, was a triple Grammy winner, and deservedly so. Described by Adams as “a memory space,” the music performed by live choruses and orchestra has superimposed upon it pre-recorded street sounds and the reading of victim’s names by family members and friends. This sound collage creates from chaos and shock and sorrow a sense of redemption as the repeated words “Love” and “Light” from the choruses ring out, then subside as street sounds and the words “I see water and buildings” return us to a calmer world, to everyday life.
Another master of mystic music and contemplative performance is Arvo Part, who is seventy years old today. We hear several of his works, including “Spiegel im Spiegel” (Mirror in the Mirror) and “Tabula rasa,” both favorites of those familiar with his music. The blank slate on which this music is inscribed seems to be the silence Part finds necessary. He writes, “My music was always written after I had long been silent in the most literal sense of the word. . . . If you approach silence with love, music may result.”
Gidon Kremer and Tatjana Grindenko are the two violinists, who join Alfred Schnittke on prepared piano and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra under Saulus Sondeckis to break that silence.
“Transmigration,” recorded by the New York Philharmonic, the New York Choral Artists, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus under Lorin Maazel, was a triple Grammy winner, and deservedly so. Described by Adams as “a memory space,” the music performed by live choruses and orchestra has superimposed upon it pre-recorded street sounds and the reading of victim’s names by family members and friends. This sound collage creates from chaos and shock and sorrow a sense of redemption as the repeated words “Love” and “Light” from the choruses ring out, then subside as street sounds and the words “I see water and buildings” return us to a calmer world, to everyday life.
Another master of mystic music and contemplative performance is Arvo Part, who is seventy years old today. We hear several of his works, including “Spiegel im Spiegel” (Mirror in the Mirror) and “Tabula rasa,” both favorites of those familiar with his music. The blank slate on which this music is inscribed seems to be the silence Part finds necessary. He writes, “My music was always written after I had long been silent in the most literal sense of the word. . . . If you approach silence with love, music may result.”
Gidon Kremer and Tatjana Grindenko are the two violinists, who join Alfred Schnittke on prepared piano and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra under Saulus Sondeckis to break that silence.
