NBC engaged Williams due to the network's desire to contrast with the synthesized music common for news programs at the time.
A reviewer for Slate compared it to the work of Richard Strauss and Aaron Copland, and noted that the piece makes "you feel that you've been asked to join an exciting journey for truth.
[3] Variations of The Mission have also been used for NBC News at Sunrise prior to 1996, for The Chris Matthews Show, and for Today from 1985[3] to 2013, when it was replaced with a new piece by Adam Gubman conveying a "more newsy and less cinematic" sound.
Fugue for Changing Times was used for Before Hours, a 15-minute early morning business news program hosted by Bob Jamieson, which aired between March 1987 and September 1988.
[3] The Pulse of Events was originally intended for midterm election coverage on November 4, 1986[6] and was later adopted by Meet the Press in 1989[7] and breaking news interruptions in 1993.
[2] Slate characterized the piece as having "fast, complicated modulations that sound more urgent and wary than [The Mission]: They foreground the show's relentless, logical ethos.