House of Mirrors

two pianos (1993)

Duration: ca. 8 minutes

House of Mirrors  is a piece for two pianos which, in its form, is a mirror (or crab) canon.  In this work, the two pianists play parts that are exactly the same, but each starts at opposite ends of the music, meeting and passing in the middle.  This form could be considered as the musical equivalent of the palindrome Madam I’m Adam. The idea for this piece stems from 1991, shortly after I had finished an arrangement of Ma fin est mon commencement, a famous motet by the 14th century composer Guillaume de Machaut, a piece which exhibits similar features  However, unlike Machaut’s work, the musical material in House of Mirrors is based primarily on harmonic, not melodic musical material.  The title of the work refers not only to form of the piece but also to the many mirror-like echoes which occur between the two pianos throughout the work.