answered: This week we learned about Mozart’s Requiem and the genre of

  

This week we learned about Mozart’s Requiem and the genre of the funeral mass, or a piece to use as a memorial. Find examples of music you know that was designed to memorialize tragic events (for example, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the AIDS epidemic, wars, or natural disasters) or pay tribute to their victims. Is the music meant to soothe pain or rekindle grief, or for yet other purposes—and how do the composers make musical choices to achieve those purposes?
John Adams: On the Transmigration of Souls
This piece was composed by John Adams in 2002 in tribute to the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Adams composes this piece both as a commemoration of the victims and as a musical narrative that recounts the events of that day and its aftermath. Adams’s incorporation of both real sounds and musical ones blends the real with the imagined. There is an arc to this piece that begins and ends with the ambient sounds of the city—vehicles passing by, brakes occasionally squealing, and the distant sound of police sirens. Then a voice begins speaking the word “missing,” soon joined by other speakers with phrases like “my brother” and the names of the victims lost in the attack. The names are repeated and layered, giving the impression of polyphonic chant. Speakers also read posts made by those searching for loved ones immediately after the attacks (physical descriptions and contact information). These readings mingle with short recollections of the victims by their survivors. The narratives are all spoken above an ambient wash of strings and percussion, with choral interjections in which children’s voices are prominent. In the middle sections, the music becomes eerier, more dissonant, chaotic, and violent. A fortissimo passage by the orchestra recalls the violent imagery of the planes striking the towers, a sonic reminder of the horror experienced that day. There is silence and then the sound of sirens. Before the end, there is choral crescendo and climax with repetitions on the words “light” and “life.” The piece ends as it began, leaving listeners in the “new reality” of the city.