Tuesday, August 23, 2005
John Adams piece in commemoration of the events of 11th September 2001, On The Transmigration of Souls, received it's British premiere at The Proms last year. The CD of the piece wasn't then released until September that year, and we haven't got it into the library until last week. It is beautiful and terrifying, elegiac and remorseless. It starts gently, with the orchestra playing, but then there's the introduction of sound textures, including voices. A child emotionlessly repeats the word "missing", missing... missing... missing, then adult voices join him, reading the names, missing... Joseph W. Flounders... missing... Helen D. Kirk... missing, reportage creeps in with voices speaking or the choir singing, I see water and buildings... You will never be forgotten..., like the engines on a plane. Then, ten minutes in, the first crescendo. A moment of supreme spiritual terror, I want to look away, then realise I can't turn from the minds eye, I can't block it out. Is this it? Was this the moment when the planes crashed into the buildings? The music quietens, the choirs sing, scraps of phrases taken from newspaper reports after the events, a cushion of thought carrying these souls on. Then, second crescendo, this time with the choir as well. Anger, terror, pain, loss. The unquiet dead. Or perhaps, the pain and grief of the United States at this wounding, and the anger that calls for the blood of others to staunch the wound to the soul? And then, finally, the return to the elegy, the return of the names, but this time, no child calls out "missing", is this the roll-call at the gates to the afterlife, or are the living reclaiming the dead, that as long as we remember them the passengers on the planes are not dead, their killers miserable failures?
I watched The West Wing episode 'Isaac and Ishmael' again last night. These are two measured responses to the insanity that humanity does to itself, blind, deaf and amnesiac creature that it is. And, as one of the characters in The West Wing says, "Terrorism has a 100% failure rate in achieving it's objectives" and I wonder how many more 'memory spaces' must there be before mankind wakes up to at least this truth?
I watched The West Wing episode 'Isaac and Ishmael' again last night. These are two measured responses to the insanity that humanity does to itself, blind, deaf and amnesiac creature that it is. And, as one of the characters in The West Wing says, "Terrorism has a 100% failure rate in achieving it's objectives" and I wonder how many more 'memory spaces' must there be before mankind wakes up to at least this truth?
