Musical interpretation. On the problem of interpretation of a musical work in vocal and performing arts

Musical interpretation as a result of the interaction of musical notation, performing traditions and the creative will of the performer.

The author's information encourages the performer to think, imagine, find associations, and gives rise to emotions. Performing information influences the author's information, narrows or expands it, complements, transforms, that is, a rethinking of the musical work occurs, as a result of which it is created artistic image. Reinterpretation of the author's information should in no case lead to a distortion of the author's intention. Genuine performing co-creation is possible only when the author's information finds reciprocal feelings in the performer.

Working on a piece of music is a creative process, the diversity of which is associated both with the artistic features of the work and with the various individual characteristics of the performer. What tasks does he face? And what contributes to the development of a performer’s creative abilities, stimulates the formation of his musical taste and professional skills?

To perform means to create through deep penetration into the content of a work and the embodiment of musical content based on an artistic image. Recreating the content of a work presupposes fidelity to the author's text, understanding of the ideological orientation of the work, emotional richness ( musical art affects emotional sphere human perception).

Interpretation -(from Latin interpretatio - clarification, interpretation) - the process of sound realization of a musical text. The interpretation depends on the aesthetic principles of the school or movement to which the artist belongs, on his individual characteristics and ideological and artistic intent. Interpretation assumes individual approach to the music being performed, an active attitude, the presence of the performer’s own creative concept for the embodiment of the author’s plan. Until the beginning of the 19th century, the art of interpretation was closely connected with the work of composers: as a rule, composers themselves performed their works. The development of interpretation is due to the intensification of concert activity.

As an independent art, interpretation acquired special significance in the 20-30s of the 19th century. In performing practice it is affirmed new type musician-interpreter - performer of works by other composers. In parallel, there are traditions of original performance. Subtle interpreters of the works of other authors were F. Liszt, A.G. Rubinstein, S.V. Rachmaninov. Since the second half of the 19th century, a theory has been emerging musical interpretation(studies the variety of performing schools, aesthetic principles of interpretation, technological problems of performance), which by the beginning of the 20th century became one of the areas of musicology. Significant contributions to the development of the Russian theory of interpretation were made by G.M. Kogan, G.G. Neuhaus, S.Ya. Feinberg and others.

Objective and subjective, intuitive and rational in musical performance. The creative nature of performance.

The famous pianist I. Hoffman wrote: “The correct interpretation of a musical work follows from its correct understanding, and this, in turn, depends on a scrupulously accurate reading.” This means that the correct nature of the performance is evidenced, first of all, by a meaningful interpretation that strictly corresponds to the author’s text “The musical text is wealth bequeathed by the composer, and his performing instructions are an accompanying letter to the will,” said composer and pianist S. Feinberg. However, there is not only text, but also subtext of the work. The remarkable pianist K. Igumnov believed that the performer should also bring “a good half” into the text from himself, that is, he should approach the internal character of the work, reveal its subtext. The legendary G. Neuhaus constantly reminded of the need to constantly delve into the mood of the piece being performed, because it is precisely in this mood that one cannot fully musical notation, the whole essence of an artistic image. From all of the above, it follows that the exact execution of the composer’s text should not mean its formal reproduction, but a meaningful creative “translation” of the recording-scheme into real sound images.

Understanding and interpretation as dialectically interconnected aspects of interpretation. The generation of new meanings as a result of interpretation. Specificity of artistic interpretation, intuitive comprehension of the object of interpretation (experience, synergetics).

The role of semantic and aesthetic analysis works for performing interpretation

Intentionality and unintentionality in musical interpretation

Let us note that musical performance is, first of all, a procedural and dynamic moment. This means that the transformation of a musical image on stage is natural, during which some particular changes in the interpretation of the musical image occur. Researchers talk about the variability of music reproduction by one performer or a combination of variable and invariant elements.

The interpretive process can be presented as the interaction of two contradictory principles - intentional (as the focus of the stable in the process) and unintentional (as the focus of the changeable in the process). These two large and complex layers constitute the structure of the process. The unfolding of this structure in time, the totality and connection of its elements form a moving sound integrity, which, in fact, is an interpretative process.

Intentional Start is a generalized expression of the given nature of the process. Intentional elements include elements whose quality parameters are programmed by the musician before the start of performing actions and which he intends to implement in the upcoming process. Together, these elements form a consciously planned part of the performing interpretation and constitute the quantitative dominant of the process. Their distinctive features are: internal motivation, certainty and semantic significance. To one degree or another, intentionality covers all levels of the design structure. The intentional beginning bears the stamp of the artist’s individual artistic consciousness and is a sign of his creative uniqueness.

The interpretative process is not reducible to sequentially implemented intentionality. Comes into its own unintentional start, which is inevitably present in acts of objectification and has a fundamentally different nature. An unintentional beginning is a dynamic component of the process, the elements of which arise spontaneously, appear in the form of deviations from the course set by the original plan and form an “existential field” of uncertainty. This component, reflecting the irrational aspect of performing creativity, becomes the bearer of the very possibility of an unpredictable, self-generating change in the image-plan. The unintentional beginning includes elements of a different nature. If we consider them in the content-semantic plane, then the need arises to divide unintentional elements into two subtypes: semantic and asemantic.

Semantic (improvisational) a type unites a group of incidental elements endowed with artistic and expressive meaning. Being a creative product of the “free” (unspecified) activity of the unconscious, the result of the momentary “activity” of intuition, imagination, fantasy and internal movements of feelings, usually called artistic experience, they form an artistic-productive layer of an unintentional beginning. Their characteristics are: unintentionality, novelty and semantic significance, and the latter forms the basis of the unity and kinship of improvisational and intentional elements, going back to one source - the sound image. The unintentional beginning includes improvisation, but is not limited to it.

Asemantic (chaotic) the species combines a group of unintentional elements, the appearance of which is not caused by artistic factors, but a “failure” in activity. The origin of these elements is associated with violations in the technological and regulatory areas of execution. They appear in the form of performance errors, defects and moments of disorganization of the process. Asemantic elements cause damage to what was intended, do not give an “objective” semantic result, but only introduce more or less significant destruction into the process, and therefore constitute an artistically unproductive layer of an unintentional beginning. Considering the extremely inappropriate, clearly destructive level of functioning of this component, it can be called “chaotic”.

The question of the adequacy of the performing interpretation of a musical work.

A musician must not only master the text, his main task is to understand the composer’s intention, to recreate his musical images, embodied in piece of music, and select means of expression for the most accurate transmission.

A. France wrote: “To understand a perfect work of art means, in general, to re-create it in your inner world.” K.S. Stanislavsky said that only “the actor’s deep penetration into the author’s idea, getting used to the image embodied on stage, when the actor lives, feels and thinks in the same way as the role, only then can his actions lead to stage success.”

The Italian pianist F. Busoni spoke on this matter as follows: “It is an almost superhuman task to throw away one’s own feelings in order to transform into the feelings of the most diverse individuals and from here study their creation.” The Russian critic V.G. very subtly noticed the creative essence of performing art. Belinsky: “The actor complements the author’s idea with his acting, and this addition consists of his creativity.” The same logic operates in the musical performing arts.

A.N. Serov, a famous Russian composer and music critic, wrote:“The role - at least from a Shakespeare play, the music - at least from Beethoven himself, in relation to the brilliant performance, only a sketch, an essay; colors, the full life of a work is born only under the charming power of the performer.”

For example, the most popular first concert for piano and orchestra by P.I. Tchaikovsky, gained wide popularity only 4 years after the first performance, when it was brilliantly performed by N. Rubinstein. The same story happened with P. Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto, which only after L. Auer’s performance took its rightful place in the concert repertoire of violinists.

These examples show the creative nature of performing activity, which is not a simple, formal translation of the author's text into sound, but its creative execution. The psychological essence of interpretation was very accurately expressed by A.N. Serov: “ Great mystery great performers in that they illuminate what they perform with the power of their talent from within, brighten it, put it there the whole world sensations from your own soul."

Interpretation is not limited to the professional merits and skill of the performer. It is an expression of all aspects of personality, and is associated with worldview, ideological orientation, common culture, versatile knowledge and way of thinking that make up the internal content of the individual.

The social, moral and professional responsibility of the performer increased from the end of the 18th to the middle of the 19th century, when the art of performing was separated from the art of composition. The fate of the work largely depended on the performer.

A. Rubinstein: “It is completely incomprehensible to me what is generally meant by objective performance. Any performance, if it is not produced by a machine, but by a person, is in itself subjective. Correctly conveying the meaning of an object (composition) is the law for the performer, but everyone does it in their own way, that is, subjectively; and is it conceivable otherwise? If the presentation of a composition must be objective, then only one manner would be correct, and all performers would have to imitate it; What would the performers become? Monkeys? Is there only one performance of the role of Hamlet, or King Lear, etc.? So, in music I understand only subjective performance.”

Formation of artistic and performing ideas and its implementation

In matters of interpretation, exceptional importance belongs to the imagination - the mental process of forming an image of future activity, or creating a new one in the form of a general idea, or a more specific representation of the final product of activity. Imagination is always a mental construction of a program for subsequent activity, ahead of its materially embodied form. There is a distinction between recreative and creative imagination. Creative is the creation of new ideas and images. Recreating is the construction of images based on musical text, etc. Recreating imagination is the psychological basis for creating a musical performance interpretation.

Two types of performers - emotional type (adherents of the “art of experience”) and intellectual type artists (theater art, Stanislavsky).

There are performers of the synthetic type. A remarkable combination of these two principles is found in the activities of S.V. Rachmaninov, and P. Casals, A. Toscanini and J. Heifitz, D. Oistrakh and S. Richter, L. Kogan and E. Gilels, E. Svetlanov and V. Fedoseev. They are distinguished by deep penetration into the content of a musical work, brilliant unity of content and form, interesting, original interpretation and excellent technical skill. This type is characterized by a balance between the emotional and intellectual principles, which is consciously regulated.

Various aspects of interpretation: 1. interpretation by the performer of the author's intention; 2. historical inheritance; 3. intercultural and intracultural relations. Authentic performance, immersion in the historical and cultural context.

Work on a piece of music should be based on a comprehensive study of it. This will allow you to delve deeper into the figurative sphere, maintain the performer’s interest in the work and, finally, understand the author’s intention.

The most important starting point on this long and complex path is the era in which this or that work was created. Composers seem to speak different languages at different times and embody different ideals, reflect aspects of life, philosophical and aesthetic views, and concepts characteristic of a particular time. Accordingly, expressive means are used. It is necessary to understand why this particular style arose in a particular era, to connect it with the personality of the composer, who is a “product” of the era, belongs to a certain social group, nationality, to put the musical work in these conditions and to establish in what relationship it is with the creator and time.

Let's take the relationship between epoch and movement designation (tempo). In different eras, tempo designations were interpreted differently. In the pre-classical period, the tempos “Allegro”, “Andante”, “Adagio”, for example, did not indicate the speed of movement, but the nature of the music. Scarlatti's Allegro is slower (or more restrained) than the Allegro of the classics, while Mozart's Allegro is slower (more restrained) than the Allegro in its modern sense. Mozart's Andante is more mobile. Than we understand it now. The same can be said about the relationship musical era with dynamics and articulation. Of course, the authority that is present allows you to argue somewhere with dynamic instructions, to perceive piano, pianissimo, forte, fortissimo in a new way.

Sound recording

The first devices for recording and reproducing sound were mechanical musical instruments. They could reproduce melodies, but were not able to record arbitrary sounds, such as human voice. Automatic playback of music has been known since the 9th century, when the Banu Musa brothers, around 875, invented the oldest known mechanical instrument - a hydraulic or “water organ” that automatically played replaceable cylinders. The cylinder with protruding "cams" on the surface remained the main means for mechanical reproduction of music until the second century. half of the 19th century century. During the Renaissance, a number of different mechanical musical instruments were created that reproduced this or that melody at the right moment: barrel organs, music boxes, boxes, snuff boxes.

In 1857, de Martinville invented phonautograph. The device consisted of an acoustic cone and a vibrating membrane connected to a needle. The needle came into contact with the surface of a manually rotated glass cylinder coated with soot. Sound vibrations passing through the cone caused the membrane to vibrate, transmitting vibrations to the needle, which traced the shape of sound vibrations in the soot layer. However, the purpose of this device was purely experimental - it could not reproduce the recording made.

In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, which could already play its own recording. Sound is recorded on the medium in the form of a track, the depth of which is proportional to the volume of the sound. The phonograph soundtrack is placed in a cylindrical spiral on a replaceable rotating drum. During playback, a needle moving along a groove transmits vibrations to an elastic membrane, which emits sound.

Edison Thomas Alva (1847-1931), American inventor and entrepreneur. Author of more than 1000 inventions in the field of electrical engineering and communications. He invented the world's first sound recording device - the phonograph, improved the incandescent lamp, telegraph and telephone, and built the world's first power station in 1882.

In the first phonograph, a metal roller was rotated using a crank, moving axially with each revolution due to the screw threads on the drive shaft. Tin foil (staniol) was placed on the roller. A steel needle connected to a membrane of parchment touched it. A metal cone horn was attached to the membrane. When recording and playing back sound, the roller had to be rotated manually at a speed of 1 revolution per minute. When the roller rotated in the absence of sound, the needle extruded a spiral groove (or groove) of constant depth into the foil. When the membrane vibrated, the needle was pressed into the tin in accordance with the perceived sound, creating a groove of variable depth. This is how the “deep recording” method was invented.

During the first test of his apparatus, Edison pulled the foil tightly onto the cylinder, brought the needle to the surface of the cylinder, carefully began to rotate the handle and sang the first stanza of the children's song "Mary Had a Little Lamb" into a megaphone. Then he retracted the needle, returned the cylinder to its original position with the handle, inserted the needle into the drawn groove and began to rotate the cylinder again. And from the megaphone a children's song sounded quietly but clearly.

In 1885, American inventor Charles Tainter (1854-1940) developed the graphophone - a foot-operated phonograph (like a foot-operated sewing machine) - and replaced the tin sheets of the rollers with a wax paste. Edison bought Tainter's patent, and removable wax rollers began to be used for recording instead of foil rollers. The pitch of the sound groove was about 3 mm, so the recording time per roller was very short.

The phonograph existed in almost unchanged form for several decades. It ceased production as a device for recording musical works at the end of the first decade of the 20th century, but was used as a voice recorder for almost 15 years. Rollers for it were produced until 1929.

Ten years later, in 1887, the inventor of the gramophone, E. Berliner, replaced the rollers with disks, from which copies can be made - metal matrices. With their help, the familiar gramophone records were pressed (Fig. 4 a.). One matrix made it possible to print an entire edition - at least 500 records. This was the main advantage of Berliner's records compared to Edison's wax rollers, which could not be replicated. Unlike Edison's phonograph, Berliner developed one device for recording sound - a recorder, and another for reproducing sound - a gramophone.

Instead of deep recording, transverse recording was used, i.e. the needle left a sinuous trail of constant depth. Subsequently, the membrane was replaced by highly sensitive microphones that convert sound vibrations into electrical vibrations, and electronic amplifiers. 1888 is the year Berlinger invented the gramophone record and recording.

Until 1896, the disc had to be rotated manually, and this was the main obstacle to the widespread use of gramophones. Emil Berliner announced a competition for a spring motor - inexpensive, technologically advanced, reliable and powerful. And such an engine was designed by mechanic Eldridge Johnson, who came to Berliner’s company. From 1896 to 1900 About 25,000 of these engines were produced. Only then did Berliner's gramophone become widespread.

The first records were single-sided. In 1903, a 12-inch disc with recording on two sides was first released.

In 1898, Danish engineer Woldemar Paulsen (1869-1942) invented an apparatus for magnetically recording sound on steel wire. Subsequently, Paulsen invented a method of magnetic recording on a rotating steel disk, where information was recorded in a spiral by a moving magnetic head. In 1927, F. Pfleimer developed a technology for producing magnetic tape on a non-magnetic basis. Based on this development, in 1935 the German electrical engineering company AEG and the chemical company IG Farbenindustri demonstrated at the German Radio Exhibition a magnetic tape on a plastic base coated with iron powder. Mastered in industrial production, it cost 5 times less than steel, was much lighter, and most importantly, made it possible to connect the pieces by simple gluing. To use the new magnetic tape, a new sound recording device was developed, which received the brand name "Magnetofon". Magnetic tape is suitable for repeated sound recording. The number of such records is practically unlimited. It is determined only by the mechanical strength of the new information carrier - magnetic tape. The first two-track tape recorder was released by the German company AEG in 1957, and in 1959 this company released the first four-track tape recorder.

In modern pedagogy of musical art, the education of a whole complex of professional and personal qualities of a musician is associated with the problem of artistic interpretation. An analysis of the experience of leading teachers shows that active creative activity in the process of interpretation stimulates the intensive development of musical abilities and artistic-imaginative thinking, performing will and performance skills, creative imagination and intuition, musical culture and artistic taste of the student, and forms an adequate self-esteem of the professional and personal qualities of students music. This circumstance allows us to consider interpretation from the perspective of developmental education.

Questions of the relationship between training and development have recently worried many teacher-researchers. The ideas of developmental education, coming from the great teachers of the past (A. Disterweg, J.A. Comenius, J.-J. Rousseau), in modern Russian science have taken shape in the position according to which training and development are closely interrelated, but not identical (B. G. Ananyev, S. L. Rubinshtein, A. N. Leontiev, L. V. Zankov, D. B. Elkonin, etc.). Realization of the developmental effect of training, according to L.S. Vygotsky, is to focus on the “zone of proximal development,” which determines the degree of difficulty of educational information and the pace of its assimilation. From the point of view of Z.I. Kalmykova, developmental education is education that forms artistic, imaginative, creative thinking. This, in turn, presupposes an orientation towards the principles of didactics, such as problem-solving, the harmonious development of various components of thinking, and the individualization of the learning process.

The problem of interpreting a piece of music in the learning process

The form of individual lessons when learning to play a musical instrument is, in the opinion of the listed teacher-researchers, a unique territory, first of all, creative development student, where he, in collaboration with the teacher, shows his individuality in the process of working on musical works.

The implementation of teaching and developmental possibilities of interpretation presupposes targeted guidance on the part of the teacher, correcting the interpretation process taking into account the individual characteristics of the student, stimulating creative search an optimal performing solution that develops skills of independent performing activity in the process of artistic interpretation of the musical text of a musical work. Co-creation between teacher and student in working on the artistic interpretation of musical compositions is a necessary condition for the development of artistic and imaginative thinking of a student musician.

This is evidenced by the experience of outstanding Russian pianists and teachers. In the class of the famous domestic teacher L.V. Nikolaev’s performance interpretation of any musical work was structured differently each time, depending on the individuality of the student. “A teacher who is quite sensitive in the classroom,” wrote L.V. Nikolaev, - speaks and acts based on what he heard from the student, adapting to him. Therefore in pedagogical work you have to improvise again every time.” The “improvisational™” principle of a creative approach to students was one of the guiding principles in pedagogical activity this musician.

Another outstanding musician G.G. Neuhaus, creating an atmosphere of extraordinary spirituality during his classes, considered it important to ensure that each student, inspired by the power of the poetic image presented to him, mobilized all his spiritual strengths and capabilities. As E.N. convincingly shows in her research. Fedorovich, it was cooperation that served as the foundation for nurturing the student’s creative personality in the pedagogical practice of many outstanding Russian pianists: F.M. Blumenfeld, K.N. Igumnova, G.G. Neuhaus, L.V. Nikolaeva, A.G. Rubinshteina, N.G. Rubinshteina, S.B. Feinberg.

True mastery of musical works and the creation of one's own original interpretations in the class of a basic musical instrument is carried out in the process of performing activities. Knowledge comes by overcoming the difficulties of musical content and musical form, through understanding the logic of the work, comprehending its musical image.

According to L.A. Barenboim, such cognition is associated with the development of students’ skills, using musical material, to find similarities and differences, analyze and synthesize, and establish relationships. It is absolutely obvious that performing actions are inseparable from the system of mental actions. But at the same time, musical activity is impossible without the emotional experience of the process of performing and creating an artistic image, and the emotional coloring of the cognition process is characteristic of problem-based learning. Mastering musical works is associated with problematic situation a certain complexity of both theoretical and practical order. They cover the general laws of music, features of musical development, principles of form construction, specifics of harmonic and melodic language, etc.

The constant acquisition of new knowledge, the ability to apply it in practice, the involvement of basic thought processes - all this effectively contributes to the formation of artistic and imaginative thinking. Cultivating positive motivation also involves the inclusion of future music teachers in active musical performance activities. Awareness of the repertoire proposed for study as professionally significant is associated with its systematic use in pedagogical and performing practice. To this end, we try to expand as much as possible the scope of personal performing activities of students in classes in all musical disciplines.

Instilling skills research work necessary for studying the era, style, biography of the composer, is an important condition for the formation of artistic and imaginative thinking of future music teachers, and, accordingly, the interpretation of the musical works they perform. Students must be taught to work with methodological and psychological-pedagogical literature, select appropriate material and use it, conduct experiments in teaching, summarize and systematize observational data, write abstracts or reports on various problems of interest.

The performing activity of a future music teacher is more successful if the positive attitude to performing in public, the need for performing activity, psychological readiness and satisfaction from it, the presence of cognitive interest in musical performance and other motives that encourage active performing activity.

We see the point in presenting general recommendations regarding the forms and methods of developing artistic-imaginative thinking, which are promising in terms of influence on the creation of artistic interpretation of musical works. For this purpose, we will analyze the process of artistic interpretation itself, and also dwell on some aspects that are, perhaps, indirectly related to the topic of our research, but at the same time are necessary for the formation of artistic and imaginative thinking of a music teacher.

It should be noted that it is precisely the first stage of work on the interpretation of a musical work that is decisive for determining individual characteristics in understanding the artistic image of the work being studied. How to awaken imagination, direct it in the necessary direction of logical understanding of the musical texture and the nature of the artistic image, how to help in choosing a performing option that is most adequate to the composer’s idea - these and many other equally important questions arise before the teacher at the very beginning of the interpretative process.

Acquaintance with a work usually begins with playing the musical text, drawing up an intra-auditory “sketch” idea of it before starting a detailed study. Seeing everything that is written in the notes and feeling what the text signs express is not an easy task. The role of the teacher at this stage is to, without being too active, give a “key” to unraveling the content musical language essays. This help is very important, since even the right emotional response on the piece being performed is not enough to comprehend the artistic interpretation as a whole. At the initial stage of developing artistic interpretation skills, as a rule, the teacher outlines a sketch of a plan for the student’s performing actions. The musical and artistic erudition of a teacher is especially necessary for a student to work on essays whose authors have not fully recorded their intentions on paper. As an example, let's name the urtexts of I.S. Bach, who, like many of his contemporaries, wrote down the minimum in notes.

In the process of mastering a musical text, one of the very important and difficult skills is the performing skill of sight reading. Thanks to him, the player gets a first idea of the work being studied. This skill contributes to the development of the student’s internal activity, activation of his creative imagination and thinking. One of the conditions for good sight reading is the ability to “grasp” meaningful musical complexes: “horizontal” (extended melodic structures) and “vertical” (changing harmonies).

Our experience of working at the music department of the Kolomna Pedagogical Institute allows us to speak about a rather low level of students’ proficiency in this performing skill, which determines the small quantity and low quality of the material they have completed. Meanwhile, good reading from scratch is necessary to create the performing skills of a future teacher-musician, called upon to promote all the best that has been created in the art of music. In addition, quick and competent mastery of the musical text can help students in related areas of their performance training: vocal and conducting-choral.

The formation of sight reading skills should begin with the development of the ability to view the musical text with the eyes in order to understand the structure of the work (clarification of the size and tonality, voice texture, melody and accompaniment). While looking through the text, the student mentally listens to the musical material. This leads him to a clearer idea of the nature of the essay being studied and can contribute to the development of the student’s inner ear. The basis of internal hearing is the ability to operate with musical and auditory ideas - the most important qualitative sign of creative thinking. Based on the technique of quickly and competently reading notes, sight performance will help the student more easily and quickly form his own understanding of a specific musical idea and the plan for its interpretation.

The fresh and immediate primary emotional impact of musical material allows the performer to conditionally predict the model of subsequent listener perception, which is especially important in the performing activities of a music teacher.

The basis of the second stage of artistic interpretation is the logical understanding of the material fabric of the interpreted work, the creation of its artistic and sound prototype in the imagination and the finding of the most perfect ways, methods and means for its implementation. Creative character The performing search for the ideal internal-auditory artistic image of a musical work presupposes a problem-based type of learning. Placed in the conditions of the need to independently search for a solution, students do not passively assimilate ready-made information presented by the teacher, but on the basis of previous knowledge, relying on the logic of further reasoning, they independently come to new knowledge for themselves. Solving problems of a problematic nature activates the student’s artistic and imaginative thinking, promotes the development of interest in performing activities, associated, among other things, with the research and search nature of the interpretation of musical works.

The development of artistic and figurative thinking, according to teacher-researchers, is facilitated by a personal attitude towards the interpreted work, the ability to create one’s own idea of its figurative and intonation content based on experience aesthetic activity, all the wealth of life and musical impressions. “No performing creativity is possible,” we read from Ya.I. Milstein, - if the performer does not have a preliminary supply of information in his consciousness, if he is not prepared for this with all his previous development, upbringing... The higher the thesaurus of the performer, the more voluminous his “storehouse” of associations and images... the wider and deeper his personality, the more significant, brighter, more abundant the associations that arise in him when he comes into contact with the author’s thought, with primary information.”

No less significant is the use of indirect sources of information in the process of creating an interpretation of a musical work: historical materials about the era in which the author lived, information about himself, his creative method and style, existing traditions performances of his musical compositions. This not only contributes to the development of the student’s cognitive interest, the expansion of his fund artistic knowledge, but also provides the opportunity for a variant decoding of the emotional “subtext” of the musical notation of the work, which gives an individual character to its performing interpretation.

Awakening the student’s imagination and finding personal meaning in his work on interpretation is closely connected with the search for artistic and figurative associations, metaphors, and comparisons. Associative understanding of musical images is an effective method of penetration into the artistic and poetic structure, which significantly influences the process of understanding, experiencing and performing music, which is especially significant in developing the performing qualities of a teacher. This point is also important in communication between the teacher and his audience during music lessons at school.

The development of students’ creative potential and focus on solving artistic problems related to the interpretation of musical works depend on the ability to penetrate into the emotional content of the piece being played, and from the ability to create an individual emotional program for their performance. In the future, the aesthetic effect of a music teacher’s performing arts and the depth of impact of his artistic interpretation on the school audience will be based on these qualities. Discovering the creative potential of students, developing their emotional attitude towards the piece being performed are important tasks, the solution of which is possible with the use of some special pedagogical methods and special techniques.

Thus, the method of pedagogical demonstration of the studied musical work actively contributes to the education of the “apparatus of experiencing” and the “apparatus of comprehension” (K.S. Stanislavsky). The method of pedagogical demonstration is emotional “contagion”, transferring the main idea of the interpreted work to the student. Various types of display can be used: display - “involvement” (L.A. Barenboim), “searching” display (M.E. Feigin), display of the semantic code of the work (K.N. Igumnov), etc.

The greatest effectiveness of pedagogical demonstration is achieved when it interacts with verbal explanations. Depending on the purpose of the display, verbal methods can have preliminary, accompanying and final functions. For example, the role of the word as a setting that precedes listening to pedagogical performance, “guiding” the student’s perception, is interesting. During the demonstration, the teacher’s remarks increase attention to any turn musical plot essays. During the subsequent conversation, specific means of expression can be explored with the help of which the composer and performer manage to achieve the desired effect. Such communication awakens creative imagination student, gives scope to his imagination and independent logical generalizations, develops artistic and imaginative thinking.

The combination of various explanatory and illustrative methods and artistic and pedagogical analysis also contributes to the development of the emotional sphere and imagination, analytical and artistic thinking skills of the student in the process of searching for an adequate performance solution. The method of verbal characterization of the artistic image of a performed work is effective for the formation of communication skills necessary for future profession, including the skill of pedagogical improvisation.

Taking into account the musical and educational nature of the student’s future professional activity, it is necessary to remember that verbalized (expressed in verbal form) the personal meaning of the artistic image of a musical work activates both the performer (music teacher) and his listeners (audience of schoolchildren). Therefore, in the process of working on interpretation, the teacher must achieve from the student the ability to express in words the essence of the image of a musical composition and convincingly justify his performing interpretation.

The next stage of the second stage of artistic interpretation of a musical work is aimed at the specific embodiment of the idea in the field of performing motor skills, its final clarification and design. The necessary means that reveal the composer's creative intent are phrasing, dynamic colors and timbre possibilities of texture, various strokes, pedagogical nuances, fingering options, pedaling and other elements of musical language. The main form of work at this stage is studying the work in fragments, technical mastery and artistic finishing of each of them, memorizing musical material from memory. The whole temporarily fades into the background, overshadowed by the details. But with properly structured work, it is the main core with which all the details are mentally correlated.

The figurative content and style of the work determine the requirements for the performing musician’s technique. Without dwelling in detail on the analysis of the entire variety of technical techniques, we will consider one of the points that are especially important in matters of individual performing technique, as a component of the professional performing qualities of a future music teacher. The best representatives of piano pedagogy primarily associate work on sound with an understanding of technique. “Mastery of sound,” we read from G.G. Neuhaus, “is the first and most important task among other technical problems that a pianist must solve, for sound is the very matter of music... In my classes with students, I will say without exaggeration, three-quarters of the work is work on sound.”

An auxiliary intonation guide, which makes it easier to identify the convincing pronunciation of individual intonations and their sound characteristics, can serve as verbal subtext. Every composer has a scale of the most commonly used designations for the quality characteristics of sound. It certainly helps to find the desired sound characteristics of the image. At the same time, according to G.M. Kogan, a “dead” phrase positively comes to life after you select intonationally appropriate words for it.”

Intonation comprehension of a work, in our opinion, can be significantly stimulated if students are given the task of identifying lyrical hero of this work (V.V. Medushevsky). Seeing a living person in the image of the hero of a work helps to understand his behavior and create a logical subjective emotional program. The task of the student performer is to merge his vision of the world with the hero of the play, to look at the world through his eyes. The emotional “living” of the image, the personal “involvement” of the student, that is, the involvement of his intellectual and life experience, contribute to his knowledge of the personal meaning of the interpreted work.

The ability to recognize the emotions of a lyrical hero and to merge one’s own vision with him speaks of a developed emotional intelligence(qualitative development of artistic and imaginative thinking, and, accordingly, a convincing interpretation of a musical work). All this makes the work associated with the search for a lyrical hero interesting and fruitful, allowing one to liberate not only the emotional and intellectual, but also the artistic abilities of the student.

In the process of intonational comprehension of the artistic image of the interpreted work, artistic imagination helps in finding the gaming movements necessary for its sound embodiment. In order for any note, chord, passage or textural combination to sound exactly as the student would like, the teacher must help him imagine not only the sound color or timbre, but also the playing technique.

A problem display offers a great opportunity to reveal the student’s creative initiative and independence. We consider pedagogical demonstration as a method of problem-based learning from the point of view that in this capacity it helps to ensure the creation of a problem-search situation by setting tasks related to the choice and justification of a solution. This can be achieved by showing possible options performance of musical material. In this case, the student independently chooses a type of performing interpretation that suits his creative inclinations and tries to find technical means solving a specific artistic problem.

However, the specificity of performing activity is such that in the process of mastering it, moments of a different order may arise. The movements themselves - according to the feedback principle - affect the functioning of the imagination, consciousness and hearing (A. Vitsynsky, O. Shulpyakov). During the course of repeated search actions, the hand acquires the ability to “hear” (S. Savshinsky); not only “express”, but also “anticipate” this or that character of sound. The basis of the performing skills of both the student and the mature interpretive musician should be the correspondence of the sound image to the movements and sensations of the hands.

It seems that the material presented is quite sufficient to convince us of the importance of using the creative potential of technology (in particular, working on sound) in the process of interpreting an artistic image.

The situation of the birth of a performing interpretation of a musical work takes time - and the more complex the given artistic image is in design, size, and shape. If the performer has insufficient musical maturity (the moment of his professional development), the duration of this process can lead to a partial loss of his interest in the work. Therefore, at this stage, the teacher is required to have maximum activity, will and ability to lead the student. Helping the student to understand the author's intention, working on various performance tasks, achieving variety and colorfulness of sound from him, the teacher needs to ensure that interest in the beauty of harmony, the sensual image of what is being performed, and the ambiguity of the intoned meaning of a musical work do not weaken. Some methods of artistic and pedagogical analysis that are adequate to the nature of musical art are intended to help with this. Along with those previously mentioned (search for an associative artistic series, synthesis of musical and visual associations), we list those that, in our opinion, contribute to creating an atmosphere of creativity in the lesson:

The method of comparing the composer’s works based on the principle of similarity and difference (described in detail in the works of B. Asafiev and N. Grodzenskaya);

A method for comparing different versions of the same work (variants, editions, sketches);

Method of “destruction” or deliberate change of one or more means artistic expression(speed, sound strength, strokes), helping to find their optimal ratio in creating an artistic image;

The method of “reintonation”, which contributes to the best understanding of performing phrasing.

Of course, the use of these methods of artistic and pedagogical analysis requires awareness of the pedagogical expediency in each specific case. At the same time, they help solve the complex problem of the relationship between student and pedagogical initiative in the process of creating an interpretation of a musical composition. The ability to work in dialogue with a teacher stimulates the development of the student’s artistic and communication skills and creates conditions for his adequate self-expression in the proposed situation. Working in the “student’s concept” (definition by V.G. Razhnikov), saturating and improving this concept, the teacher helps the student to delve into the author’s musical idea and, through overcoming private performance tasks, bring the initial “working hypothesis” of interpretation to the final, third stage its formation.

Calling this stage the moment of “assembly” G.M. Kogan explains: “From that time on, the emphasis shifted; Although the work on the pieces continues, it takes on the character of refinement and finishing touches; the playback of the entire piece and trial performances come to the fore. They constitute the main content of the assembly stage.” The student gets the opportunity to perform freely, focusing only on the musical image itself.

When playing a prepared work, it is quite possible for it to introduce new, previously unforeseen details. First of all, this can affect performing agogy - moments associated with tempo and rhythmic rubato, a colorful sense of harmony, artistic “pronunciation” of strokes, etc. Such a manifestation of the student’s creative intentions is not arbitrariness, but a kind of synthesis of his own perception of music and perceptions of the teacher, the result of their joint work. Here we mean that state of internal liberation, creative freedom, special rapprochement with the world of images of the interpreted composition, which is a necessary condition for full performance not only by a mature musician, but also by a student. Supporting the student’s initiative and encouraging even the most modest performance decisions are tasks of paramount importance.

Conclusion

A concert performance crowns the work on a piece of music. On the stage, according to the majority of performers and music teachers, the process of artistic interpretation is completed. “Of course,” writes N.A. Lyubomudrova, “any composition should generally be well learned and performed, but it is a public performance that sums up all the work done in the class, obliging both the student and the teacher to the highest possible quality, requiring special completeness and clarity in revealing the idea.” Lyubomudrova’s statement is consonant with the words of A.B. Goldenweiser: “The performance only became complete when the piece was played on the stage; It is the pop performance that gives a powerful impetus to artistic development.”

The student’s focus on conveying to others his performing interpretation of a particular musical image is important. educational value, arising from the natural interaction between the performer and listeners at the moment of interpretation. Research by psychologists (D.L. Bochkarev, V.Yu. Grigoriev, M.Yu. Kapustin, G.M. Tsypin, etc.) shows that contact between performer and listeners is the basis of interpretive creativity in the process of musical communication.

The reaction of the public, the active perception of what they hear gives rise to a spiritual connection with the musician interpreting the work, thanks to his skill, artistry and passion in revealing the figurative and artistic intent of the musical work. The listener's assessment and approval are an incentive to further development creative searches in creating your own interpretations. The skill of creative communication with the public through performing interpretation can serve as an effective means of developing the artistic and imaginative thinking of a future music teacher.

Bibliography

1. Dubinets E. “Signs of sounds” K. Gamayun, 1999,

2. Kholopova V. Parameter of expression in the music of S. Gubaidulina. In the collection: “Main trends of modern music” Moscow, Music, 2007

3. Soviet encyclopedic Dictionary ed. " Soviet Encyclopedia 1980

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Music

Description:

The problem of interpreting a piece of music in the learning process

The form of individual lessons when learning to play a musical instrument is, according to the listed teacher-researchers, a unique territory, first of all, for the creative development of the student, where he, in collaboration with the teacher, shows his individuality in the process of working on musical works.

The implementation of educational and developmental possibilities of interpretation presupposes targeted guidance on the part of the teacher, correcting the interpretation process taking into account the individual characteristics of the student, stimulating the creative search for the optimal performing solution, developing the skills of independent performing activity in the process of artistic interpretation of the musical text of a musical work. Co-creation between teacher and student in working on the artistic interpretation of musical compositions is a necessary condition for the development of artistic and imaginative thinking of a student musician.

This is evidenced by the experience of outstanding Russian pianists and teachers. In the class of the famous domestic teacher L.V. Nikolaev’s performance interpretation of any musical work was structured differently each time, depending on the individuality of the student. “A teacher who is quite sensitive in the classroom,” wrote L.V. Nikolaev, - speaks and acts based on what he heard from the student, adapting to him. Therefore, in teaching work we have to improvise anew every time.” The “improvisational™” principle of a creative approach to students was one of the guiding principles in the pedagogical activities of this musician.

According to L.A. Barenboim, such cognition is associated with the development of students’ skills, using musical material, to find similarities and differences, analyze and synthesize, and establish relationships. It is absolutely obvious that performing actions are inseparable from the system of mental actions. But at the same time, musical activity is impossible without the emotional experience of the process of performance and creation of an artistic image, and the emotional coloring of the cognition process is characteristic of problem-based learning. Mastering musical works is associated with a problem situation of a certain complexity, both theoretical and practical. They cover the general laws of music, features of musical development, principles of form construction, specifics of harmonic and melodic language, etc.

Instilling the research skills necessary to study the era, style, and biography of the composer is an important condition for the formation of artistic and imaginative thinking of future music teachers, and, accordingly, the interpretation of the musical works they perform. Students must be taught to work with methodological and psychological-pedagogical literature, select appropriate material and use it, conduct experiments in teaching, summarize and systematize observational data, write abstracts or reports on various problems of interest.

The performing activity of a future music teacher is more successful provided that a positive attitude towards public performances is formed, the need for performing activity, psychological readiness and satisfaction from it, the presence of cognitive interest in musical performance and other motives that encourage active performing activity.

Acquaintance with a work usually begins with playing the musical text, drawing up an intra-auditory “sketch” idea of it before starting a detailed study. Seeing everything that is written in the notes and feeling what the text signs express is not an easy task. The role of the teacher at this stage is to, without being too active, give a “key” to unraveling the content of the musical language of the composition. This help is very important, since even the correct emotional response to the piece being performed is not enough to comprehend the artistic interpretation as a whole. At the initial stage of developing artistic interpretation skills, as a rule, the teacher outlines a sketch of a plan for the student’s performing actions. The musical and artistic erudition of a teacher is especially necessary for a student to work on essays whose authors have not fully recorded their intentions on paper. As an example, let's name the urtexts of I.S. Bach, who, like many of his contemporaries, wrote down the minimum in notes.

Our experience of working at the music department of the Kolomna Pedagogical Institute allows us to speak about a rather low level of students’ proficiency in this performing skill, which determines the small quantity and low quality of the material they have completed. Meanwhile, good sight reading is necessary to create the performing skills of a future music teacher, called upon to promote all the best that has been created in the art of music. In addition, quick and competent mastery of the musical text can help students in related areas of their performance training: vocal and conducting-choral.

The basis of the second stage of artistic interpretation is the logical understanding of the material fabric of the interpreted work, the creation of its artistic and sound prototype in the imagination and the finding of the most perfect ways, methods and means for its implementation. The creative nature of the performer's search for the ideal internal-auditory artistic image of a musical work suggests a problem-based type of learning. Placed in the conditions of the need to independently search for a solution, students do not passively assimilate ready-made information presented by the teacher, but on the basis of previous knowledge, relying on the logic of further reasoning, they independently come to new knowledge for themselves. Solving problems of a problematic nature activates the student’s artistic and imaginative thinking, promotes the development of interest in performing activities, associated, among other things, with the research and search nature of the interpretation of musical works.

The development of artistic and figurative thinking, according to teacher-researchers, is facilitated by a personal attitude towards the interpreted work, the ability to create one’s own idea of its figurative and intonational content based on the experience of aesthetic activity, the entire wealth of life and musical impressions. “No performing creativity is possible,” we read from Ya.I. Milstein, - if the performer does not have a preliminary supply of information in his consciousness, if he is not prepared for this with all his previous development, upbringing... The higher the thesaurus of the performer, the more voluminous his “storehouse” of associations and images... the wider and deeper his personality, the more significant, brighter, more abundant the associations that arise in him when he comes into contact with the author’s thought, with primary information.”

No less important is the use of indirect sources of information in the process of creating an interpretation of a musical work: historical materials about the era in which the author lived, information about himself, his creative method and style, existing traditions of performing his musical works. This not only contributes to the development of the student’s cognitive interest and expansion of his fund of artistic knowledge, but also makes it possible to decipher the emotional “subtext” of the musical notation of the work, which gives an individual character to its performing interpretation.

The greatest effectiveness of pedagogical demonstration is achieved when it interacts with verbal explanations. Depending on the purpose of the display, verbal methods can have preliminary, accompanying and final functions. For example, the role of the word as a setting that precedes listening to pedagogical performance, “guiding” the student’s perception, is interesting. During the demonstration, the teacher’s remarks increase attention to any turn in the musical plot of the composition. During the subsequent conversation, specific means of expression can be explored with the help of which the composer and performer manage to achieve the desired effect. Such communication awakens the student’s creative imagination, gives scope to his imagination and independent logical generalizations, and develops artistic and imaginative thinking.

The combination of various explanatory and illustrative methods and artistic and pedagogical analysis also contributes to the development of the emotional sphere and imagination, analytical and artistic thinking skills of the student in the process of searching for an adequate performance solution. The method of verbal characterization of the artistic image of a performed work is effective for the formation of communication skills necessary for a future profession, including the skill of pedagogical improvisation.

Considering the musical and educational nature of the student’s future professional activity, it is necessary to remember that the verbalized (expressed in verbal form) personal meaning of the artistic image of a musical work activates both the performer (music teacher) and his listeners (audience of schoolchildren). Therefore, in the process of working on interpretation, the teacher must achieve from the student the ability to express in words the essence of the image of a musical composition and convincingly justify his performing interpretation.

Intonation comprehension of a work, in our opinion, can be significantly stimulated if students are given the task of identifying the lyrical hero of a given work (V.V. Medushevsky). Seeing a living person in the image of the hero of a work helps to understand his behavior and create a logical subjective emotional program. The task of the student performer is to merge his vision of the world with the hero of the play, to look at the world through his eyes. The emotional “living” of the image, the personal “involvement” of the student, that is, the involvement of his intellectual and life experience, contribute to his knowledge of the personal meaning of the interpreted work.

The ability to recognize the emotions of a lyrical hero and to merge one’s own vision with him speaks of developed emotional intelligence (qualitative development of artistic and imaginative thinking, and, accordingly, a convincing interpretation of a musical work). All this makes the work associated with the search for a lyrical hero interesting and fruitful, allowing one to liberate not only the emotional and intellectual, but also the artistic abilities of the student.

A problem display offers a great opportunity to reveal the student’s creative initiative and independence. We consider pedagogical demonstration as a method of problem-based learning from the point of view that in this capacity it helps to ensure the creation of a problem-search situation by setting tasks related to the choice and justification of a solution. This can be achieved by showing possible options for performing musical material. In this case, the student independently chooses the type of performance interpretation that suits his creative inclinations and tries to find technical means of solving a specific artistic problem.

The method of comparing the composer’s works based on the principle of similarity and difference (described in detail in the works of B. Asafiev and N. Grodzenskaya);

A method for comparing different versions of the same work (variants, editions, sketches);

The method of “destruction” or deliberately changing one or more means of artistic expression (speed, sound strength, strokes), helping to find their optimal ratio in creating an artistic image;

The method of “reintonation”, which contributes to the best understanding of performing phrasing.

The performing interpretation of a musical work is associated with the secret of penetration into its content, semantic and emotional structure. At the same time, in addition to formal grammatical analysis (tonal plan, form, harmony, texture, etc.), the performer must inevitably resort to analysis figurative content. These difficulties are a consequence of the academic tradition: the analysis of musical text is characterized by a narrowly grammatical approach; A narrow technical orientation is no less common among performers.

And, although many musicians - theorists and practitioners of pianism - paid active attention to the formation of performing articulation skills, it must be recognized that the development of a semantic analysis methodology makes it possible to approach this problem from the standpoint of expressive, rather than narrowly technical, pronunciation of the author's text. Agreeing with the opinion of musicians who put the content of music at the forefront and proclaimed the primacy of “what” is pronounced rather than “how” it is pronounced (G. Neuhaus), we have to admit that most often the practical evidence of these calls remained the prerogative of the person who proclaimed them . The narrowly grammatical and often narrowly technical approach did not satisfy many musicians, which often necessitated poetic analogies, comparisons, and associations in order to try to reveal the “poetic essence of the work” (A. Cortot).

By forming ideas about the image, the “verbal characteristics” of the musical image, according to many musicians, contribute to the search for a variety of performing techniques. At the same time, the musicians recognized that “it is impossible to express the content in words, and it is not necessary, the word will only be next to the music” (S. Savshinsky). Nevertheless, this method occupied a large place in pedagogy; many agreed with the need to use verbal characteristics and metaphors, because they “have a piece of direct meaning” (V. Medushevsky).

Teachers often used the “poetic characteristics of the musical image” in order to make the meaning and content of the music accessible and the performer’s version reliable.

Development of perception of the form of the play

The development of the simplest perception of the form of the piece being performed is a necessary condition for its meaningful, expressive performance. From the very first steps, the student develops ideas about musical phrase as the simplest construction containing certain meaning. The student should be shown how phrases form a sentence and sentences are combined into periods. The teacher helps to trace the development of the melody, its gravity towards the climax, draws the student’s attention to the meaning of the beginning and end of the phrase, crescendo and diminuendo when playing the melody, to the role of caesuras. The student should feel that music is similar to human speech, it is meaningful and expressive.

To show the registers of the piano, you can use pieces with contrasting images, the musical characteristics of which use different registers. It is very important, when developing a student’s perception of the means of musical expression, to associate their use with certain artistic tasks. For example, a quiet sound can be defined as transparent, light, airy, mysterious, etc., a low register sound can be defined as alarming, scary, etc.

To perform means to create; It depends on the performer whether he will enliven a piece of music, spiritualize it, or deaden and degrade it. How to achieve this? By deeply penetrating the content of the work and embodying the musical content based on the artistic image. Recreating the content of a work presupposes fidelity to the author's text, understanding of the ideological orientation of the work, and emotional richness (musical art affects the emotional sphere of human perception).

Creating an artistic image is impossible without taking into account the uniqueness of the historical era in which the work was created; its genre features, national features of the composer’s worldview, the nature of the use of expressive means of music, that is, everything that we call stylistic features or traits. All of the listed style features must be taken into account when working on a piece of music. They define the very essence of the work; which is based on a comprehensive study of the work, the desire to penetrate as deeply as possible into its content. All this is closely related to the concept of interpretation.

Interpretation -(from Latin interpretatio - clarification, interpretation) - the process of sound realization of a musical text. The interpretation depends on the aesthetic principles of the school or movement to which the artist belongs, on his individual characteristics and ideological and artistic intent. Interpretation presupposes an individual approach to the music being performed, an active attitude, and the presence of the performer’s own creative concept for the embodiment of the author’s intention. Until the beginning of the 19th century, the art of interpretation was closely connected with the work of composers: as a rule, composers themselves performed their works. The development of interpretation is due to the intensification of concert activity.

As an independent art, interpretation acquired special significance in the 20-30s of the 19th century. In performing practice, a new type of musician-interpreter is being established - a performer of works by other composers. In parallel, there are traditions of original performance. Subtle interpreters of the works of other authors were F. Liszt, A.G. Rubinstein, S.V. Rachmaninov. Since the second half of the 19th century, the theory of musical interpretation has been developing (studies the variety of performing schools, aesthetic principles of interpretation, technological problems of performance), which by the beginning of the 20th century has become one of the areas of musicology. Significant contributions to the development of the Russian theory of interpretation were made by G.M. Kogan, G.G. Neuhaus, S.Ya. Feinberg and others.

What attracted me to this topic?

I work as the director of an orchestra of Russian folk instruments. And before rehearsals, questions arise; how to most clearly reveal the artistic image and convey the information of the work, no matter what time it belongs to? What means and techniques of artistic expression?

Otherwise, the result of execution will be something formless, vague, and indefinite. Of course, the conductor is forced to resolve these issues together with the orchestra members, because together they participate in this complex process of working on the artistic image of the work.

Children encounter interpretation not only in the orchestra, but also in every lesson at music school, even without knowing it. Of course, the first teachers in this exciting work are their senior mentors. They try to educate and develop in them their own, independent character of musical performance and at the same time be able to reveal and approach the inner character of the work. But for me, the figure of the conductor is closer and more interesting.

S.V.Rachmaninov, E.F. Svetlanov, F.I. Fedoseev, V.B. Dudarova; I named only a few Russian surnames, which we can be proud of and which have perfectly proven that the profession of a conductor is exciting and honorable. The question arises: how and as a result of what did they achieve that inimitability in the interpretation of musical works?

“One is not born a conductor, one must be educated,” said the famous teacher and conductor Ilya Aleksandrovich Musin.

Modern conducting requires the orchestra director to have broad education, thorough musical theoretical training, keen hearing, good musical memory, and an active, focused will.

Translation is exactly the same process of interpreting a verbal text as performing music-text notation. There is no guarantee of authenticity here. It is especially necessary to understand the composer's language when dealing with music in which romantic moods and images dominate. Even the most experienced translator will need a lot of auxiliary words to properly convey the meaning of the expressions used in the original text.

“It is no coincidence that changes in eras bring with them a kind of new life to brilliant creations, making them relevant again, although they are destined to live for centuries. And the task of the conductor is to fully convey to the public their relevance, without in any way distorting their internal structure ", nor the author's intention. It is therefore necessary to be able to distinguish the characteristics that determine the essence of the work - its structure, color, semantic content - from those that reflect its external connection with the era." Such differences are more obvious in works intended for the stage and allowing the interpreter greater freedom of action. But in order to convey to the modern listener the living reverence and original charm of a musical composition of the past, we need to be fully aware of exactly what features made it modern for the era in which it was created.

The fact that a conductor must be an exponent of the composer's ideas is by no means a new concept. In John Matteson's treatise, The Perfect Bandmaster, published in 1739, we find a remarkable summary of the conductor-composer dilemma: " The Toughest Challenge, prepared for the performer of something of creation, truly lies in the need to direct all the power of his mind to

in order to understand the original essence of other people's thoughts. Who doesn’t know how the creator of music would play its liveliness and beauty, and it often turns out that the composer, when he hears this, will not recognize his piece at all.”

This kind of evidence that sheds light on what they thought was unacceptable is especially impressive when it comes to us from the words of composers who were themselves conductors. And this is natural; they are more strict with other conductors than those of their colleagues who either do not take up the baton at all or do so only occasionally. And this is confirmed by the words of Gustav Mahler: “How much time passes, what comprehensive experience you need to acquire, what maturity, until you learn to perform everything simply and naturally, as it is written; do not add or bring anything extra from yourself, about more ultimately turns into less...?

Interesting case Boris Emmanuilovich Khaikin describes in his book “Conversations about the Conducting Craft”: While sitting behind the wheel of a car, I committed some kind of violation. The inspector stopped me and said, “We’ll have to meet you,” and he asked for my documents. Having read the name, he asked: “What is this, a composer?” I answered: “Yes, a conductor” (I did not say: “no, a conductor,” as this could complicate our dialogue: objecting and contradicting in such cases is not recommended). He looked at me in bewilderment: “I said: composer.”

The traffic inspector treated me generously, I drove on and thought: is he really wrong in considering these two concepts identical?

What is the role of the performer-interpreter of musical works? How should the performance be - objective or subjective? Can performance be both objective and subjective at the same time, and what is the acceptable relationship between these concepts in this case?

The famous pianist I. Hoffman wrote: “The correct interpretation of a musical work follows from its correct understanding, and this, in turn, depends on a scrupulously accurate reading.” This means that the correct nature of the performance is evidenced, first of all, by a meaningful interpretation that strictly corresponds to the author’s text “The musical text is wealth bequeathed by the composer, and his performing instructions are an accompanying letter to the will,” said composer and pianist S. Feinberg. However, there is not only text, but also subtext of the work. The remarkable pianist K. Igumnov believed that the performer should also bring “a good half” into the text from himself, that is, he should approach the internal character of the work, reveal its subtext. The legendary G. Neuhaus constantly reminded us of the need to constantly delve into the mood of the work being performed, because it is precisely in this mood, which is not completely amenable to musical notation, that the entire essence of the artistic image lies. From all of the above, it follows that the exact execution of the composer’s text should not mean its formal reproduction, but a meaningful creative “translation” of the recording-scheme into real sound images.

Of course, when the conductor wants, everyone must want; when he commands, everyone must obey. It is unthinkable to play inaccurately, carelessly, lazily. From each score you need to extract the most secret and intimate, from each orchestra member, with your demands and super-demands, you need to squeeze out to the last drop all his individual skill and impose on him fanaticism, an increase in strength, a tension of will that he has never experienced. Such violence against someone else’s will cannot, of course, proceed peacefully and calmly, so everyone knows that a conductor must have a stormy, stubborn character, capable of self-control. Such refinement inevitably presupposes a persistent, fierce, fanatical struggle for perfection. Unfortunately, unforgettable hours of performing art are so rare in a person's life.

The battle for perfection among poets, composers, artists, musicians usually takes place within the walls of the workshop, and only from their sketches and drafts can one, at best, only vaguely guess the sacred sacrament of creativity... The work of any master must be clearly worked out in the mind of the conductor - worked out rhythmically and plastically in the smallest shades long before he approaches the remote control; rehearsal is not a process of creation, but only an approach to the inner plan, and when the orchestra members just begin creative work, the conductor has already finished it long ago. Revealing the score at the first rehearsal, he knows what he wants: now the task is to force the musicians to unquestioningly submit to their will, in order to prevent the not yet realized prototype, the completed plan into orchestral performance, the musical idea into real sounds and make that unattainable perfection a law for the entire orchestra , which he alone hears with his inner hearing.

The pinnacle of mastery is achieved only where the most difficult is perceived as the most natural, where the perfect seems to be taken for granted. In his wonderful book “The Art of Conducting” Wagner wrote: “Only orchestra members are able to judge whether you conduct well or badly.” He was not mistaken. No one criticizes a conductor more harshly than the musicians with whom he works. Orchestras and singers, who consider themselves necessarily authoritative judges, usually do not evaluate the musical tastes and character of the conductor very favorably. They question his ability to reveal the plan, laugh at his demands, and mimic his gestures and mannerisms. Not a single conductor escapes the harsh, sometimes insidious examination carried out by the musicians he leads (with rare exceptions). Very few conductors remain above criticism.

A titanic work, an almost impossible undertaking - the most diverse natures and talents must, with phonographic precision, feel and reproduce the plan of one single person. In achieving clarity of expression, the conductor must be extremely expressive and fully reveal the full power of persuasion; wealth of body movements, gift of gestures. Even a person completely alien to music must guess from the conductor’s gestures what he wants and demands, when he beats the beat, when he spreads his arms in an enchanting manner or passionately presses them to his chest, achieving great expressiveness, when he plastically, visibly recreates the picture of the ideal sound. And here the unlimited possibilities of means of persuasion open up; request, spell, entreaty, demand with words and gestures, counting bars, humming, transformation into each individual instrument, if this instrument needs to be spurred on.

Suggestive influences are the most important component in the structure of a conductor’s control activity. After all, the conductor controls not the instruments, but the actions of the people playing them. Therefore, the factor of influence on the psyche of the direct performers becomes important, sometimes decisive. The orchestra can react to the conductor’s impulses in different ways: help carry out his creative line, be neutral, and even provide obvious or hidden resistance. In all these manifestations, the mainspring is the leaders of the group: accompanists, soloists, especially authoritative musicians. The creative output of musicians at concerts and rehearsals largely depends on this.

Practice confirms that all major conductors, at a certain stage of professional wisdom, significantly reduce the amplitude of their movements. (Mahler, Strauss, Toscanini, Mravinsky). The point here is not at all that their strength naturally weakens with age. Simply by accumulating a wealth of artistic experience, they were convinced in practice that the main thing in the art of a conductor lies not in physical actions, but in psychological factors and skills, among which suggestive influences occupy a dominant position.

basis psychological impacts the conductor is a volitional impulse that must have an energetic charge, that is, be emotionally rich and purposeful. A bright, emotional message is always able to overcome the inertia of the team, arouse a spiritual response, and infect the performers and the audience with the right mood. Will- “It’s a kind of stubbornness. The conductor needs to be convinced of the correctness of his concept and not become infected with the sound that the orchestra assumes. During the home preparation process, he must imagine exactly what he will sound like and how he will sound, and ensure that the orchestra matches his vision. This is what distinguishes real conductors from imaginary ones, who can quite deftly ensure joint performance.” (Kirill Petrovich Kondrashin co-conductor - Conductor’s World. p.8)

The conductor's style must be the style of the composers he performs. Style is the unity of the main ideological and artistic features, distinctive features, manifested in the work of the composer, performer, techniques, methods of work.

Any musical work, no matter what time it belongs to, contains one or another information that comes from the author. This information is not closed in itself, but is communicated to the conductor in the process of working on the work. When performers perceive the author's information, part of it is lost. What proportion of losses depends entirely on the level of intellectual, general theoretical and special training of the conductor, on the level of proficiency in the so-called “sense of style.” A conductor can come close to understanding the author's information, but he cannot completely master it, since the author is one thing, and the performer is another. These are different creative personalities. There will always be a certain distance between them.

At the same time, the author's information encourages the performer to think, imagine, find associations, and gives rise to emotions. As a result, in addition to the author's information contained in the work, additional information from the conductor is born, which ultimately determines the conductor's style. The performing information influences the author's information, narrows or expands it, complements it, transforms it, that is, a rethinking of the musical work occurs, as a result of which an artistic image is created. Reinterpretation of the author's information should in no case lead to a distortion of the author's intention. The conductor's actions are limited by the characteristic features of the work being performed. True performing co-creation is possible only when the author's information finds reciprocal feelings from the conductor.

Over time, the perception of music, conditions, and instruments change. From here something is lost, something is lost from the author's information, something is gained. Performing information also changes, but this is a natural process and it helps to identify previously unknown artistic features works, which speaks volumes about the depth of the concept truly talented work. Therefore, the basis for working on a piece of music should be a comprehensive study of it. This will allow you to delve deeper into the figurative sphere, maintain the performer’s interest in the work and, finally, understand the author’s intention.

The most important starting point on this long and complex path is the era in which this or that work was created. Composers seem to speak different languages at different times, embody different ideals, reflect aspects of life, philosophical and aesthetic views, and concepts characteristic of a particular time. Accordingly, expressive means are used. It is necessary to understand why this particular style arose in a particular era, to connect it with the personality of the composer, who is a “product” of the era, belongs to a certain social group, nationality, to put the musical work in these conditions and to establish in what relationship it is with the creator and time.

Let's take the relationship between epoch and movement designation (tempo). In different eras, tempo designations were interpreted differently. In the pre-classical period, the tempos “Allegro”, “Andante”, “Adagio”, for example, did not indicate the speed of movement, but the nature of the music. Scarlatti's Allegro is slower (or more restrained) than the Allegro of the classics, while Mozart's Allegro is slower (more restrained) than the Allegro in its modern sense. Mozart's Andante is more mobile. Than we understand it now. The same can be said about the relationship of a musical era with dynamics and articulation. Of course, the authority that is present allows you to argue somewhere with dynamic instructions, to perceive piano, pianissimo, forte, fortissimo in a new way.

But there is no need to be willful; play piano instead of forte. The great Arturo Toscanini said: “Why search when everything is written?” The notes contain everything, the composer never hides his intentions, they are always clearly expressed on the music paper...” What was written by the composer was sacred to him. This was his principle of interpreting music. Toscanini never went beyond the author's requirements.

Notes, accents, dynamic signs were like orders, which he followed with absolute respect, was obliged to obey. Maestro Antonio Votto, who worked with Toscanini as second conductor at La Scala for eight years, confirms this: “His respect for works of art was so strong that he tried to perform the score as accurately as possible. However, each of his performances was a new reproduction of the score compared to how it was usually performed at that time, and therefore his performance seemed like something hitherto unheard of. Of course everyone shouted about a miracle, about magic. But there was nothing magical about it: he accurately reproduced what was indicated in the score, and tried to do it the best way, avoiding any omissions or cuts. This was the reason for the liveliness of his interpretation, the tempos of which were sometimes somewhat more fluid than those we usually heard.”

One might say that this is an example of an ideal conductor; synthesis of musical abilities with moral qualities; in other words, the unity of technology, nature and human feeling. It is impossible to be completely devoted to the author's text if at the same time there is not enough moral strength and humility, if there is no courage to force everyone to give the maximum necessary for an excellent performance of the work.

Not many are capable of turning from arrogant, vain conductors into modest, simple people. It depends on the character. Desire alone is not enough here. Because, in essence, we wear our character all our lives, like a turtle’s shell. Anyone who thinks that composers make mistakes and need to be corrected is very arrogant. They do not always have a sufficient understanding of the “boundaries of what is permitted” and the degree of their responsibility to the composer. We need to study again, study in order to understand better. After all, they did not write the music so that the conductor would make faces in front of the orchestra. He must reveal them as they are, bring the orchestra as close to them as possible. The conductor must perform. Liberties in execution, although not so often, do occur. The incomplete composition of the orchestra, the freedom given to the singers, who can insert inappropriate fermata anywhere - this willfulness distorts the music incredibly. Music is a tonal, sound structure, with precisely established laws of melody, rhythm and harmony.

But it is impossible, and indeed impossible, to stereotype musical speech. There will still be some slight difference. This is natural and characteristic of the creative soul of an artist. This unique state of mind is where the beauty of live communication with the orchestra during a performance lies. The interpretation cannot be recorded with mechanical precision, because in the end this would ruin the enchantment of listening to the work. It would turn into an archival exhibit.

The meaning of rhythm in musical performance fundamental as well as the need to search for purity of timbre sounds, organization of the dynamics of the work and, of course, faith in the means capable of conveying music, that is, conventional musical notation, traditional instruments and, of course, performing musicians.

I will try to analyze the secret of interpretation success. The first is the ability to analyze the score; synthesis cannot be made if analysis cannot be done: synthesis is a direct consequence of analysis. Achieving clarity of all elements of a musical work is a very complex and long process. Each topic should be heard in a continuous avalanche of sounds. Next is the merging of two or more melodies, their simultaneous performance, relief. Hidden in the polyphony of sounds, and everything appears clear, simple and obvious.

The conductor must know the instruments perfectly, their capabilities, boundaries, clearly imagine in his mind the timbre, the color of the sound, the harmony of the sound of various groups of instruments, and demand that the orchestra reveal in the sound everything that he “read” in the text. Written by the composer. The score as an object of creative knowledge is essentially inexhaustible. It allows for countless performance interpretations that do not violate the integrity of the author's text. At the same time, the interpreter follows what is in the field of view of his perception and intensively searches in the work for those features that are creatively closest to him and necessary.

One famous conductor, unfortunately I don’t remember who exactly, said: “If you need to re-read the score two hundred times, do it, but don’t say: “Almost good,” because in music there can never be “almost good.” Or perfection, or nothing.” In this case, intuition plays an invaluable role, which helps to grasp musical characteristics and captures the effect that will result. This sense of form, that is, the disclosure of the dramaturgy of the work, the definition of tempos, the relationship of fragments - all this is based on some innate properties. Kirill Petrovich Kondrashin attached great importance to the development of the “sense of pause”. “A pause emphasizes drama, delineates psychological oppositions, and puts both performers and listeners on guard. I mean a general pause (fermato), and a small delay within the beat. Sometimes the authors note such stops in some detail, sometimes not, but even in this case the conductor is not obliged to play everything “in a row.” A sense of dramaturgy should prompt him to unwritten caesuras, and a sense of proportion should help him find exactly how long the pause should last. The greatest compliment of my life I received from Stravinsky, who, after listening to “Petrushka” under my baton in New York, said to me: “You have a great sense of pauses.” But I did them in many places and where it is not indicated.”

An interesting study was conducted by the French art critic Lemaire. Taking recordings of the performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as interpreted by eight major conductors, he discovered a paradoxical, at first glance, phenomenon. It turned out that the time difference between the performances of the symphonies of Toscanini and Furtwängler reaches more than 10 minutes. At the same time, Karajan is 3 minutes faster than Toscanini. Conducted a scherzo. What does this prove? Absolutely nothing. It is unlikely that anyone, based on such purely formal indicators, will seriously undertake to determine the “advantage of interpretation of this or that outstanding master.

It is important, first of all, to determine the true meaning of the notes and notes. If allegro con brio or cantabile is written, it is the conductor’s duty to ensure strict adherence to these instructions, to be able to explain clearly, to convey the will of the composer to the orchestra or singers, and only then, if something does not work out, to look for the necessary changes. BUT generally speaking, what do we mean by changing the text? Nuances? Essentially, this is not even a change - it is a feature of the reading. “The conductor has the right, even more than that, he is obliged to correct the nuances, that is, the verticality of the scores.” It is quite natural that the leading instruments should play louder, the secondary sound should be somehow shaded. If you know how to distribute sonority during performance, you adjust it with your hands - this can be realized without writing it down in notes. The same applies to agogics - the structure of a phrase, its tendency towards a climax.