New York Philharmonic/Maazel, Lincoln Center, New York City<br></br>London Symphony Orchestra/Davis, Barbican Hall, London

In tribute: grave, spacious and intimate

For anyone but the survivors, the bereaved, the eye-witnesses, and those who cleared the wreckage of Ground Zero, the World Trade Center attacks of 11 September, 2001 remain forever frozen at point of impact: a beyond-Hollywood conflagration of flaming fuel and too-blue sky mediated by the freeze-frame, fast-forward, high-resolution perfection of 24-hour television coverage, its looped soundtrack a ground-level gasp of "Holy shit!". Like an itch unsated by scratching or a food whose flavour cannot be discerned, we pick and pick at that iconic moment; hoping for meaning, growing fat on frustration. Only later do the life-stories and last words behind the statistics come to mind; the missing persons posters and mobile telephone calls. Only later do numbers become names and the victims have voices; the starting point for John Adams's New York Philharmonic 9/11 commission, On the Transmigration of Souls, which received its world premiere at New York's Lincoln Center last week.

Grave, spacious yet intimate in mood, Adams's 30 minute "memory space" has achieved remarkable serenity at such short remove from the events it commemorates. Though Ives's The Unanswered Question is referenced in Transmigration, there is a hint of Morton Feldman's Rothko Chapel here too; a still, reflective, humane sadness. Scored for youth choir (the superb Brooklyn Youth Chorus), adult chorus (the New York Choral Artists), an orchestra of pellucid strings, tectonic brass, murmuring, curling woodwind, and – for the first time in Adams's composing career – taped speech, Transmigration avoids the narrowly descriptive and the brashly climatic, blending the gravitas of his Whitman setting The Wound-Dresser with the dream-like suspensions of Act III of Nixon in China, then cutting both elements back to the essential.

Threaded throughout the work, from (over-loud) speakers dotted around Avery Fischer Hall, are the closely-recorded voices of a boy, a young woman, a middle-aged man and a middle-aged woman, each quietly reading the name of a victim; a device that could be maudlin or manipulative but, through its inflectionless delivery, is humane, dignified and sincere. But the text and tone of Transmigration is not grand, self-consciously cathartic, ceremonial or over-wrought. It is drawn from the missing persons posters around the ruins of the World Trade Center; simple, artless expressions of love and sorrow from a mother, a father, a sister, a friend, a wife and a lover – "Please call... We love you Chick"; "We love you Louie"; "I love Dave Fontana"; "We all miss you..." – set to simple, near-static, near-spoken choral melodies and conducted with surprising restraint by Lorin Maazel. The sole reference to the TV images of 9/11 is a sharp series of startling and beautiful vertiginous string dissonances recalling the severe-clear weather conditions of that day, terrible and glorious. The sole expression of fear – flight attendant Madeline Amy Sweeny's words "I see water and buildings" – tempered by wonder. Indeed the abiding sensation in this multi-layered yet spectacularly oxygenated work is of weightless suspension – from the shimmering blocked string chords to the spiralling flutes and glints of glockenspiel and celeste – or of hesitation on a threshold. The movement in this work's title refers not just to those who were killed but those who mourn, and the greatest testament to Adams's growing craft is that the sentiments of those people are voiced without sentimentality.

How I would feel about this work were I the lover or sister or wife or mother of one of those named in Transmigration is something I cannot know. But as one who knew no one in that long list, it made me think about Chick, Louie and Dave Fontana and how loved they, and so many others, were when alive. To suggest, as some have done, that this commission represents either the rehabilitation of Adams after a year that saw him denounced as "anti-American" in the New York Times or artistic bravery on the part of the commissioners is to overlook the value of this music. Commissioning Adams, America's most mature composer, to commemorate 9/11 was less a matter of bravery than plain good sense. With Transmigration, the New York Philharmonic have created a work that will last beyond the generation who watched their televisions that day and given voice to the individuals behind the icons.

Back in London, Sir Colin Davis was at the helm again this Wednesday for a celebration of his 75th birthday at the Barbican Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra and a very starry line-up of soloists. The traditional adjective for active septuagenarians is sprightly, but Davis – when out of the pit of the Royal Opera House, at least – goes above and beyond that description, combining what are still matinee idol looks with a level of energy, concentration and musical focus that would be admirable in one 20 years his junior. Reason to celebrate indeed.

Gala concerts are generally dismal affairs stuffed full of novelty items, minor royals, musical jokes (which, let's face it, are rarely actually funny), and virtuosic showpieces of the lowest aesthetic order. True to form, the Wessexes were on display in the balcony (prompting the shortest version of the national anthem I've heard) and there were a couple of lollipops in the programme too (Sarasate's dimwitted Zigeunerweisen, and Glazunov's faux-baroque froth-boiler Chant du ménestral) but since these were played by Sarah Chang and Mstislav Rostropovich respectively no one was going to complain. And though a concerto for three pianos is, I suppose, a novelty piece by definition, so absorbing, stylish and inventive was the interplay between Mitsuko Uchida, Imogen Cooper, Radu Lupu and Davis that it raised Mozart's sweet banalities to a sublime height. But despite the joys of Uchida, Cooper and Lupu, the greatest moments of the evening were those that belonged to Davis and the LSO alone: Janacek's impossibly flashy Taras Bulba and Berlioz's divine Royal Hunt and Storm from Les Troyens; a breathtaking display of polish and daring, beautifully offset by Ian Bostridge's delicately nuanced account of Vallon sonore.

a.picard@independent.co.uk