Spiegel im Spiegel for alto flute and piano

By Pärt Arvo

Arvo Pärt: Spiegel im Spiegel (German for "Mirror in the Mirror") was composed in 1978. Originally written for violin and piano, as the first of several instrumental combinations Pärt created.
The original 1978 composition for violin and piano is dedicated to the renowned Russian violinist Vladimir Spivakov, who premiered it on December 27, 1978, at the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.

1978 was the year before Pärt emigrated from Soviet Estonia. He had recently emerged from a self-imposed compositional silence that began in the late 1960s, during which he studied medieval and Renaissance music. Out of this period, he developed his signature minimalist "tintinnabuli" style, characterized by a melodic voice and a "bell-like" voice restricted to notes of the tonic triad.
He focused on extreme tranquility, pure harmony, and the core essence of the notes, famously described by the composer with the phrase "one and one makes one".
The serene, introspective nature of the music contrasted sharply with the political tensions and artistic censorship of the Soviet regime. The Pärt family emigrated in 1980, seeking artistic freedom in Vienna and then Berlin.
The arrangement for alto flute and piano was completed in 2007.
Read more about this work: Arvo Pärt Centre

Natalia Jarzabek

Emmy Wils (piano), 2019 DUX / NAXOS

Spiegel im Spiegel

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Pärt Arvo

Arvo Pärt (1935) is one of the most famous Estonian composers of the the 20th and 21st century. Born in a small Estonian town Paide, young boy started to study piano with Ille Martin in Rakvere and Veljo Tormis in Tallinn.
Even he graduated the Tallinn Conservatoire as a composer, having produced several piano works and Symphony No. 1, he worked as a sound engineer at the Estonian Radio for 10 years, exposing himself to contemporary music by Eino Tamberg, Veljo Tormis, and Jaan Rääts and styles of neoclassicism, dodecaphony, serialism, sonorism, collage technique and aleatoricism. During that period he produced modern works inspired by Baroque music and quotes from J.S.Bach compositions (e.g. Collage über B-A-C-H).
Many of his works were heavely criticized since Estonia were part of the USSR at that time and his music, used text and embeded message in them were considered dangerous by Soviet regime. Since 1967 Pärt pursued his career as a freelance composer, producing soundracks for many Estonian movies and animated films at that time.
This period often is called "period of crisis" during which he finally renunciate the modernist techniques and radically changed his musical style to quest of self-exploration, immersing himself in studying Gregorian chant, the Notre Dame School and Renaissance polyphony. Year 1976 marked the beginning of his original musical language, which he called tintinnabuli (from tintinnabulum – Latin for ’little bell’), producing such profound compositions as Fratres (1977), Tabula rasa (1977) and Spiegel im Spiegel (1978). In 1980 he was forced to emigrate to Vienna with his family, and later to Berlin where he lived for almost 30 years, producing world-known compositions like Stabat Mater (1985), Te Deum (1985), Miserere (1989/1992) etc. He returned to his native Estonia in 2010 where his birthday has been celebrated each year at National level, attracting world's class performers all around the world. In 2010 the Arvo Pärt Centre was established in Laulasmaa, containing his personal archive.