After the September 11 attacks in 2001, performances by the Boston Symphony Orchestra of excerpts from "Klinghoffer" were canceled. BSO managing director Mark Volpe remarked of the decision: "We originally programmed the choruses from John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer because we believe in it as a work of art, and we still hold that conviction. ... [Tanglewood Festival Chorus members] explained that it was a purely human reason, and that it wasn't in the least bit a criticism of the work." Adams and "Klinghoffer" librettist Alice Goodman criticized the decision, and Adams rejected a request to substitute a performance of "Harmonium", saying: "The reason that I asked them not to do "Harmonium" was that I felt that "Klinghoffer" is a serious and humane work, and it's also a work about which many people have made prejudicial judgments without even hearing it. I felt that if I said, 'OK, "Klinghoffer" is too hot to handle, do "Harmonium", that in a sense I would be agreeing with the judgment about "Klinghoffer".' " In response to an article by the "San Francisco Chronicle"'s David Wiegand denouncing the BSO decision, musicologist and critic Richard Taruskin accused the work of catering to "anti-American, anti-Semitic and anti-bourgeois" prejudices.