Adams: On the Transmigration of Souls

On the Transmigration of Souls is Adams' response to the cataclysmic events at 9/11. He wrote it in 2002 in response to a commission of the New York PO and the Lincoln Center. Up to now I have studiously avoided this piece, for several reasons. First, because it is tied up with an event that is revolting and ambiguous in so many ways. There is the sheer vileness of the attack. But there is also the ensuing, manipulative abuse of the event by media and 'leaders' of all sorts. Furthermore, the oppressive weigthiness of the occasion seemed to sit uneasily with Adams' posture (from my perspective) as postmodern magpie and tongue-in-cheeck iconoclast.

Finally, it seems to me that music has very little to 'say' about these kinds of events. Sure, composers have been writing occasional pieces for ages and sometimes to splendid effect (take Britten's War Requiem or Shostakovich's Babi Yar as examples). But that doesn't mean that the music is in any way able to communicate about or help us to come to terms with trauma. Personally I don't believe in the all too commonplace conception of music as an expressive language. Music, for me, is architecture unfolding in time. These are 'tönend bewegte Formen' (Hanslick) that trigger our capacity for pattern recognition and for dealing with complexity in general. In their physical manifestation and physiological and psychological effects these forms may have a therapeutic effect (I'm the last to deny it) but we don't need metaphysics to talk about that.

Anyway, obviously, for me, Adams was skating on very thin ice with a piece like this. But I can't deny to also being to an extent curious about what this composer had made of the challenge. So now that I have been, for a while, dipping in and out of minimalist waters it looked like a good occasion to take the plunge and listen to the Transmigration.

At first I was disconcerted to see that the piece was at 25 minutes duration relatively short. The bombastic title had hinted at something more monumental. And also the fact that a full Nonesuch CD was devoted to the original recording with Maazel and the NYPO led me to expect a more substantial work. Rather pompous to confine this work on its own to a full CD, isn't it? Anyway the recording can now be purchased at mid price. 

I didn't have access to the Maazel version so I listened to the Telarc recording with the Atlanta SO and Chorus led by Robert Spano which is in my father's collection. My gut reaction after a first audition was: "too Spielbergian". Adams had myriads of choices to make when he started to find his way into the thicket of this major composition: understated or grandiose? abstract or programmatic? with or without text? canonic or vernacular words? Along all of these axes he seemed to have taken the easy way: a grandiose 'story' based on (recorded) words and ambient sounds of cinematographic simplicity. Macrostructurally the piece seemed to comply with a very simple template: an slow, silent introduction, a cathartic middle section followed by a return to the opening music (incidentally akin to Hartmann's Adagio (his Symphony nr. 2), a work in a somewhat similar vein).

I gave it a second try. Then read Adams' view on the piece from an interview on his earbox.com website. That was interesting. I learned that Adams had only 6 months to write the work. Hence the relatively short duration. Adams also makes clear that he didn't want to write a piece to 'remember' or 'heal'. His intention was rather to evoke a very basic, pre-cognitive experience similar to when one enters under the huge vault of a cathedral. It plays out at two levels: space and of history. The cathedral is experienced as a 'memory space'. And this is how Adams conceived his work. Adams: "It’s a place where you can go and be alone with your thoughts and emotions." The idea of a piece of music opening up a very basic (psychological and, why not, 'real') space fits my musical aesthetics better than the mindless mumbo jumbo of 'expression' that dominates contemporary discourse. It reminds me of Libeskind's design for the Jewish Museum in Berlin. What about the title then? Adams:

'Transmigration' means 'the movement from one place to another' or 'the transition from one state of being to another.' It could apply to populations of people, to migrations of species, to changes of chemical compositon, or to the passage of cells through a membrane. But in this case I mean it to imply the movement of the soul from one state to another. And I don’t just mean the transition from living to dead, but also the change that takes place within the souls of those that stay behind, of those who suffer pain and loss and then themselves come away from that experience transformed.

Again there is the spatial metaphor. Obviously there is also some sort of narrative here that goes beyond the mere opening up of a memory space despite Adams' claim that he had no desire to create a musical description of any sorts. I guess it's almost impossible to do without. But, personally I would have opted for a much more discreet title that would steer free from all kinds of programmatic and metaphysical entanglements.

The music is what it is, of course, but this background information did predispose me more favourably towards the piece. And I became even more positive when I heard the 2003 live recording on Dutch Radio 4's Concerthuis with the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra led by Edo de Waart. More so than the Spano rendering this had this static monumental quality that interpretatively seems to be more in line with Adams' conception. In this performance orchestra and choir blend into a (shockingly) beautiful and hypnotic symphonic tapestry.

What remains is the apprehension about the smoothness of the musical conception. Shouldn't there be nothing jarring about it? No barbs? I don't know. Whether this piece will stand the test of time remains to be seen. But for me it all in all confirmed Adams' artistic integrity.