Review of Adam's "On the Transmigration of Souls"

“Mr. Stockhausen, 73, called the attack on the World Trade Center ‘the greatest work of art that is possible in the whole cosmos.’ Extending the analogy, he spoke of human minds achieving ‘something in one act’ that ‘we couldn't even dream of in music,’ in which ‘people practice like crazy for 10 years, totally fanatically, for a concert, and then die.’ Just imagine, he added: ‘You have people who are so concentrated on one performance, and then 5,000 people are dispatched into eternity, in a single moment. I couldn't do that. In comparison with that, we're nothing as composers.'” (Tommasini, 09/20/01)

Stockhausen’s quotes about the events that took place on September 11, 2001 are often cited as a representation of a great artist losing touch with what art can encompass. It is acknowledged by any sound person that the attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon were not in any way a work of art. However, if one integrates these events into a work of art, has the artist not committed the same offense of the late Mr. Stockhausen?

Of all the musical works written in memoriam to any such tragedy, which are too many to list, none are more personal to me, a 25 year old American college student, than the works written in response to the previously mentioned attacks in New York and Virginia. I remember where I was when the news broke; I remember watching people jump from windows on the news; I remember not being able to grasp what had happened. Furthermore, I remember where I was and how I felt when I first heard a song written in response – Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)”. It made me irate to believe that someone found themself so exceptional that their musical talents could convey anything remotely relevant in the aftermath of a mass murder. These were real lives – lovers, parents, offspring, siblings, friends – that were lost. It seemed unfathomable that an “artist” would dare respond to such events, may it be 9/11, Hiroshima, Pearl Harbor, concentration camps, or any travesty in human history.

John Adams’ “On the Transmigration of Souls” strikes me no different than Jackson’s song. The self-righteous composer believes he has bettered the world with his work. In some inane twist of thought, he takes pleasure in his musical creation (just observe the sublime joy on Adams’ face as he discusses his composition in the interview linked below.). The thought that art of any form is a satisfactory form of commentary on the loss (or in the case, stealing) of one, much less approximately 3,000, life is insufficient to the value of our fellow man and an overestimation of music’s worth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkFTfo23xyw