In his memoir, Adams wrote that the piece "was a statement of belief in the power of tonality at a time when I was uncertain about its future"[1] and that it was "a one-of-kind [sic] once-only essay in the wedding of fin-de-siècle chromatic harmony with the rhythmic and formal procedures of Minimalism".
Adams has said that the piece was inspired by a dream he had in which he was driving across the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and saw an oil tanker on the surface of the water abruptly turn upright and take off like a Saturn V rocket.
[4] This dream and the composition of Harmonielehre shortly thereafter ended a writer's block Adams had been experiencing for 18 months.
[9] It also appears in the Modern Era soundtrack of the computer game Civilization IV,[10] along with several other pieces by Adams.
[7] Dubstep musician duo Nero samples the beginning of the first movement in the second track of its 2011 album Welcome Reality, "Doomsday".