For this work, Adams draws upon Charles Ives for inspiration. It's a canny decision; borrowing Ives' ideas of layered, seemingly incongruent sounds makes perfect sense in sketching both the physical chaos of that day and the surges of raging emotion that followed. Taped and choral voices--from the "missing" posters, from a phone call made on American Airlines Flight 11, from the New York Times' "Portraits of Grief" series--build and recede. The orchestra shudders in and out of Adams' frame. And out of the tempest, an actual Ives quote comes into sharp focus: the sole trumpet from The Unanswered Question.

Nonesuch's live recording of the New York Philharmonic alongside the New York Choral Artists, directed by Joseph Flummerfelt, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, conducted by Diane Berkin, captures all the musicians' formidable energy, with careful balance between the prerecorded samples and the live material. The players' sense of occasion and playing for history comes through clearly as well.

The piece stands alone on this world-premiere recording, and while some listeners might complain that it is not enough music to justify its (midprice) cost, it strikes me that no pairing would work, either with another Adams composition, which would run the risk of banality, or with another similarly-themed piece by someone else, against which the Adams inevitably would be measured. On its own, however, On the Transmigration of Souls speaks strongly to a singular experience.