Abstract

Mirror Extended Programme Note

Mirror is written for two players, one vibraphone. The premise is that there is a 'mirror' down the centre of the instrument and the players are mimicking each other. Mimicry is a way we learn from each other in the early stages of life, it can also be a way of forming bonds and building empathy.
In Sylvia Plath's poem 'Mirror' the mirror is addressing the reader about the changes it witnesses in its owner as the women goes through her life and ages over time. In this piece, the players are not mirroring exactly, as this would be challenging and not musically interesting; here the players are often playing close together and if not playing a note, mimicking the movement of the other performer playing by dampening notes or even pretending to play. The amount of exaggeration of movement is up to the duo performing, but like a reflection in the mirror should attempt to physicalise the piece in a similar manner.
This piece is about movement, as much as it is about the sounds created. I always watch the percussion players at the back of the orchestra as their movements are choreographed and precise like ballet dancers. Just as choreographed as our routinely engagement with our bathroom mirror, daily.

Mirror by Sylvia Plath
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles.
I have looked at it so long I think it is part of my heart.
But it flickers. Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles, or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.