duration: 10:00
instrumentation: tenor saxophone, electric guitar, piano, percussion + electronics
premiere: April 30, 2025 // Aptitudes Materiélles // Agora de la Danse, Montréal
premiere performer: Hypercube
publisher: A-Town Publications (ASCAP) © 2025
Mirror to Fire was commissioned by Le Vivier for Aptitudes Materiélles, curated by Corie Rose Soumah
Program Note:
Track 2 of the 2017 Nine Inch Nails’ album, “Add Violence” describes, to some, a struggle with addiction. Upon first listen, I was struck by how it mirrored the deep political divide and increasing isolationism we face in our current version of society. The Lovers became The Others in December 2024 when Hypercube and Ensemble Ipse joined forces at NYC’s Dimenna Center to premiere new works for large ensemble. Mirror to Fire is an extension of The Others, built for Hypercube + electronics. In probing the text again, Reznor’s line “beneath black eaves” hinted at further meaning buried within the track. A search for the origin of this line revealed poet Conrad Aiken’s The House Of Dust (1916), Up high black walls, up sombre terraces, the following stanza becoming synonymous with the original lyrics, and a guidepost in building out this newest version of the work.
—Erin Rogers (2025)
And behind them all the ghosts of thoughts went moving,
Restlessly moving in each lamplit room,
From chair to mirror, from mirror to fire;
From some, the light was scarcely more than a gloom:
From some, a dazzling desire.
—Conrad Aiken (1916)