JAVS Summer 2025

Figure 1. The Viola is silent for the first three measures. Spiegel im Spiegel, Avro Pärt, mm. 1-6. © Copyright 1978 by Universal Edition A.G., Wien/ © Copyright 1998 by Universal Edition A.G., Wien / UE31257.

The formal architecture of the piece gradually emerges as phrases build stepwise outward from the central A4. The first melodic note, G, appears just below the A and ascends to it; the second half of that phrase begins a third above the A, on Bb, and descends back down. Each new phrase adds a new note to the scale, expanding the melodic range outward—up, then down—in a mirrored

expansion that evokes the spreading reflections of a mirror facing another mirror. By the eighth phrase, the full scale has been revealed: a G Dorian ascent in the first half, and a Bb Lydian descent in the second. This final unveiling feels less like a climax and more like a moment of quiet realization, the final petal opening on a meditative flower.

Figure 2. G Dorian ascent and Bb Lydian descent in the viola line. Spiegel im Spiegel, Avro Pärt, mm. 102-123.. © Copyright 1978 by Universal Edition A.G., Wien/ © Copyright 1998 by Universal Edition A.G., Wien / UE31257.

Throughout the piece, we observe a profound attention to intervallic balance. Pärt favors perfect fourths and sixths, often placing them in opposition within a single phrase. In several of the odd-numbered phrases—especially phrases three, five, and seven—the melody ends with a leap to the cadential A4, creating a mirror image between ascent and descent, compression and release. These intervals resonate with the viola’s natural timbral warmth, highlighting its capacity for both tension and tenderness.

Notably, from the sixth phrase onward, the melody’s two halves begin to trace a long, arching contour. If we momentarily set aside register changes, the notes form a continuous melodic thread, linking one phrase to the next in an elegant, undulating motion. The violist, then, is not simply performing individual phrases, but breathing life into a single, unfolding line—a line that never hurries, that trusts the listener to wait, and that demands a kind of radical inwardness from the performer.

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 41, Summer 2025 Online Issue

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