“Transmigration” begins with city sounds–cars, sirens, footsteps–and a boy’s voice repeating the word “missing” like a tolling bell. Over hushed strings and chorus, the names begin: “John Florio, Christina Flannery…” From up in the third tier, a mournfully soaring trumpet. A false climax with kettledrums and jangling bells coming at you in waves, then a sudden quiet space and back to street noise. Then the real climax, the chorus savagely belting out, “I wanted to dig him out. I know just where he is… Love you to the moon and back… light… day… sky.” Then down to a tinkling hush, more names, the last words of a flight attendant–“I see water and buildings”–the words “I love you” and the city sounds again. The whole journey takes less than half an hour.
Rumor had it that the Philharmonic put off “Transmigration” until the second night of its season so as not to alienate stodgy donors. But a spokesman said the new conductor, Lorin Maazel, just needed more rehearsal time; the morning of the performance he ran though the piece twice and went over half a dozen rough passages, with Adams trotting to the podium for consultations. Except for a swampy minute or so, Maazel kept the pulse muscular, the phrasing crisp and the climaxes furious.
Couldn’t anybody with MIDI software graft gloomy music to names and “I love yous” and get a standing O in these apocalyptically jittery times? Just about. But Adams’s rigorous pacing and structure, his inventiveness–fragmenting the phrase “It was a beautiful day,” for instance, into scary repeated syllables–and the sheer beauty of his music should make “Transmigration” a keeper, not just in Adams’s own body of work, but in the standard repertoire. Assuming, of course, that we’ll be here to keep it.
