Spiegel im Spiegel

Pärt wrote it in 1978, just before leaving Estonia: F major, 6/4, about ten minutes, for violin or cello with piano. Spivakov and the pianist Boris Bekhterev premiered it in December 1978 at the Moscow Conservatory, and it is dedicated to Spivakov, who commissioned it. The violin plays slow rising and falling F major scales that pivot on A, beginning with two notes and adding one each phrase, while the piano plays rising triads, the tintinnabuli voice. Pärt describes the return to A as returning home after being away, and says the performer must put his ego aside. The title means mirror in the mirror.

Gidon Kremer and Elena Bashkirova recorded it in 1980 for Konzert nach dem Konzert (Eurodisc), and ECM's Alina followed in 1999. Nicola Benedetti recorded it in 2009 and Niki Vasilakis and Deanna Djuric in 2016. It has been used in films including Wit (2001), Gerry (2002), Heaven (2002), Elegy (2008), About Time (2013) and Foxtrot (2017), in Wheeldon's ballet After the Rain (2005) and in Sarah Ruhl's play Eurydice (2007). BBC Music Magazine called it a hypnotically slow, fragile piece with an almost religious intensity, and a BBC Radio 4 Soul Music episode in 2011 featured it with Tasmin Little. Yo-Yo Ma played it at UNESCO in Paris, with images from the James Webb telescope projected. We cannot tell who performs on our upload.