Spiegel im Spiegel

Spiegel im Spiegel is a piece of music written by Arvo Pärt in 1978, just prior to his departure from Estonia. The piece is in the tintinnabular style of composition, wherein a melodic voice, operating over diatonic scales, and tintinnabular voice, operating within a triad on the tonic, accompany each other. It is about ten minutes long.

Description

The piece was originally written for a single piano and violin - though the violin has often been replaced with either a cello or a viola. Versions also exist for double bass, clarinet, horn, flute and percussion. The piece is an example of minimal music.

The piece is in F major in 6/4 time, with the piano playing rising crotchet triads and the second instrument playing slow scales, alternately rising and falling, of increasing length, which all end on the note A (the mediant of F). The piano's left hand also plays notes, syncopated with the violin (or other instrument).

"Spiegel im Spiegel" in German literally can mean both "mirror in the mirror" as well as "mirrors in the mirror", referring to the infinity of images produced by parallel plane mirrors: the tonic triads are endlessly repeated with small variations as if reflected back and forth. The English word for this phenomenon is "enfilade."

In 2011 the piece was the focus of a half hour BBC Radio 4 programme, Soul Music, which examined pieces of music "with a powerful emotional impact". Violinist Tasmin Little discussed her relationship to the piece.

In adaptation

The piece is used frequently in television, film and theatre, including:

Film

• The Paolo Sorrentino film This must be the Place (2011)
• The Isabel Coixet film Elegy (2008)
• The film Dear Frankie (2004)
• The documentary film Touching the Void (2003)
• The Gus Van Sant film Gerry (2002)
• The Jean-Luc Godard film In Praise of Love (2001) and short film "Dans le Noir du Temps" (2002)
• The Tom Tykwer film Heaven (2002)
• The film Soldados de Salamina (Spain, David Trueba, 2002)
• The Guy Ritchie film Swept Away (2002)
• The Mike Nichols film Wit (2001)
• The film Mother Night (1996)

Dance

• David Nixon's Dracula performed by the Northern Ballet (UK, 2009)
• Pilobolus' Rushes in a scene choreographed using chairs. (US, 2007)
• Christopher Wheeldon's 2005 ballet After the Rain, part two (Pärt's Tabula Rasa is the score to part one.)
• John Neumeier's ballet Othello (1985), the central pas-de deux (Pärt's Tabula Rasa is the score to part two.)

Theatre

• The New York production of Eurydice, a play by Sarah Ruhl (2007)

Television

• The BBC drama Hattie (2011)
• The BBC television series Criminal Justice (2009)
• It was also used in a 2008 episode of the British medical drama Casualty, when character Dr. Ruth Winters attempted suicide, and again in January 2010 when Dr. Adam Trueman's son, Harry Trueman, dies after a car accident.
• The season two episode of Supernatural entitled "What is and What Should Never Be." (2007)
• The BBC documentary Auschwitz: The Nazis and 'The Final Solution' (2005)
• The BBC documentary Century of the Self (2002) by Adam Curtis
• The BBC documentary John Steinbeck: Voice of America (2011) by Melvyn Bragg
• The HBO television movie Wit (2001)

External links

• BBC Radio 4 programme on "Spiegel im Spiegel"