On the Typology of Musical Perception

Dyatlov Dmitrii Alekseevich Doctor of Art History Professor, Piano department, Samara State Institute of Culture 443010, Russia, Samara region, Samara, Frunze str., 167, room 100 diatlovda@mail.ru

IntroductionAcademic musical art, which originated in the bosom of church music and has centuries-old traditions, is addressed both to man and to the depths of being.

As an art of high style, it carries the ethos of service, the pathos of emotional persuasion and the logic of a harmonious musical "construction".  The aspiration of Baroque artists to the Spirit, the Harmony in the "architecture" of musical classicism, the tragic experience of romantic composers of the imperfections of the world - all this remains relevant to this day. The legacy of three centuries is also in demand. This fact is confirmed by the repertoire policy of concert agencies, and confirms the free choice of repertoire by musicians who do not depend on philharmonic management. Both the first and the second focus on the audience. At the same time, their motives are different: the management lives according to the laws of commerce, the musician at the behest of artistic intuition.

The forms of existence of musical art today are extremely diverse. The palette of musical phenomena is variegated and almost immense. Academic music associated with the compositional and, especially, performing tradition of the last two centuries is played in concert halls and attracts the attention of a vast audience. Academic music, the peculiarities of its performance and perception will be discussed in this article.

A composer creating a work, or a musician-performer preparing it for public presentation, as a rule, presuppose a listener's reaction to his work. Even if this is not taken into account, sooner or later the essay becomes public. This is how the well-known triad of composition-performance-perception or composer-performer-listener arises.

Music science, referring to the phenomenon of authorship, has developed categories of style and, more broadly, epoch. The process of periodization of New European music was long and sometimes contradictory. Currently, both the category of style and the boundaries of cultural and historical epochs are recognized as well-established. Interest in the performing arts appeared after such a phenomenon as the "golden age" of the piano, when the keyboard band gradually became a ubiquitous concert practice. Speaking about performing arts and musical perception, we will rely on piano performance, which focuses on various creative intentions – the creator of the music, its performer and, finally, the listener (meaning interested and creatively active perception). Everything that will be said about the phenomenon of piano performance and musical perception can be safely projected onto other types of academic musical art, where the role of personal participation in performance is obvious. Today, piano performance is a wide field of study, it is here that it is possible to identify patterns characteristic of various types and forms of performing art from solo to ensemble.

If the topic of performing types or styles in music science has been developed quite widely, then the problems of musical perception in musicology remain (with some exceptions) on the periphery. The perception of music is occupied by psychology, or rather its local discipline – musical psychology. Like parallel lines in Euclidean geometry, the problems of musicology, interpretology, and the theory of performing arts do not intersect with the problems of musical perception anywhere. Some of their conjugations have a rather generalized character. The purpose of this study is to begin the convergence of the theory of performance and musical psychology, to give rise to a scientific discussion. The correlation of performing styles and features of listener reception, images created by musicians and ways of comprehending them, makes it possible to start a conversation about the typology of musical perception.

About the typology of performers or performing styles

One of the first researchers of the performing arts was, as is well known, K.A. Martinsen, who proposed a typology of performing musicians. Linking their individual technique with the peculiarities of the sound–making will, he proposed three types - classical, romantic and expressionist ^{[12, p. 92]}. Martinsen created his system without taking into account the questions of the sociology of music, without realizing that the phenomena of art do not remain in some kind of immutability, but depend on many factors. This was noted by D.A. Rabinovich in his book "Performer and Style", suggesting in turn a different typology. His "piano" types are changeable and variable, indirectly connected with all movements of the "socio-historical situation" ^{[16, p. 33]}. It seems important that Rabinovich represents not only types, but also the goals of their activities: for the virtuoso type – to amaze, emotional – to express, rationalistic – to convince, intellectual - to comprehend. A large-scale study by V.P. Chinaev offers a rather branched "tree" of performing types or, as the author defines, performing styles. Solving an ambitious task "... to substantiate an independent author's concept in which performing styles would be traced historically consistently, contextually broadly, in their versatile ethical, aesthetic and poetic coverage" ^{[20, p. 6]}, Chinaev builds a multi-level picture of styles. These are classicist and pathetic, brilliant and high romantic, emotional-narrative and intellectual-contextual, narrative-psychological and formal-analytical styles.Non-idiomatic and authentic styles remain somewhat apart from the main path of research. The first relates to avant–garde art, the second to early music. A special place is given to the author's pianism of the first quarter of the XX century. The panorama of musical performance in the second half of the XX – beginning of the XXI century, according to A.V. Malinkovskaya, is determined by the factors of "globalization and acceleration of cultural processes in the world, their "mass character"" ^{[9, p. 37]}. In the triad of style – creative method – individual-typological status put forward by her, the most important categories are connected, revealing the uniqueness of each noticeable phenomenon in the performing arts and, at the same time, leave the opportunity to determine typical qualities. Speaking about the principles of typology of performers, the author notes that "the most important importance here belongs to the factors of intonation consciousness, intonation thinking of the performer, "centering" and regulating the patterns and mechanisms of interaction of style and method. These are the factors that determine, on the one hand, the uniqueness of each creative personality, on the other – their belonging to certain typological groups" ^{[10, pp. 25-26]}. V.N. Kholopova also speaks about the individual performing style and its significance for the content of interpretation ^{[18, p. 298]}. We have named only a few works from the whole corpus of performing arts research. They reflect the movement of research thought over several decades (starting with Martinsen's work, published in 1930). It can be noted that throughout the XX century, the typology of performers in various works became more complicated and branched out, until eventually it was reduced to an individual style of performance. Today, new works continue this direction of musicology. Musicology is interested in the finest nuances of individual style ^[19] and "performing intellectualism" in the performance of the latest compositions ^[14], problematic issues of the educational discipline "History of performing Styles" ^[7] and the mechanisms of the phenomenon of individual style traits from the musical imagery of the performed work ^[5].

Musicology and music psychology about listener perception

Musical psychology, along with the problems of performance, pays attention to the perception of music, finding significant differences in the "perceptual" capabilities of a particular group of listeners. Speaking about the listener's perception, no matter what qualitative characteristics it is characterized by, we mean aesthetic perception. The multilevel nature of this phenomenon is obvious. The very first reactions of a person to the sound of music are bodily. S.L. Vygotsky in his classic work "Psychology of Art" writes: "Everything that art does, it does in our body and through our body" ^{[3, p. 322]}. It is also indisputable that music evokes feelings in the listener, the diversity of which depends on his individual qualities. According to Vygotsky, the affects caused by art are the basis of aesthetic reaction ^{[3, p. 273]}. The aesthetic perception itself is a genuine, intense and active creativity of the listener. According to Vygotsky, this is due to the phenomenon of overcoming, he believes that "... it is not enough just to sincerely experience the feeling that the author possessed, it is not enough to understand the structure of the work itself – it is still necessary to creatively overcome your own feeling, find its catharsis, and only then the effect of art will be fully affected" ^{[3, p. 315]}. The most important quality of works of high style is their kinship with human speech. The melos of instrumental music always correlates with singing or speech utterance, is built in accordance with the norms of human breathing. This speech expressiveness has an irresistible effect on sensitive perception, whether it is a singing intonation or an instrumental piece, a one-voice line or a polyphonic fabric, a homophonic-harmonic or polyphonic composition of the work. E.V. Nazaikinsky in the book "On the Psychology of musical perception" writes about the relationship of musical and speech intonations as follows: "the principles of constructing replicas ... are largely based on meaningful and genre-colored speech forms, structures of dialogic speech or genre types of monologue" ^{[13, p. 281]}. M.S. Bonfeld goes further, speaking about the complex process of understanding music, the perception of which is only a condition for further creative work. He offers his hierarchy of levels of understanding or stages – from the lowest to the highest: stay, contemplation, experience, listening, analysis ^{[1, pp. 215-216]}. It should be noted here that at the time of listening to music, it is hardly possible to talk about analytical operations. Listening, however, may indicate a strenuous work of attention, nothing more. The experience speaks of a sensory reaction of perception. But contemplation or staying are obvious signs of an aesthetic reaction. They should be called the highest stage of understanding music, if not limited to its structure, even in a scrupulous competent analysis. If we talk about analysis in the process of perception, then only as an insignificant part of it. Binding processes (synthesis) are more important here than splitting into component parts (analysis). Bonfeld mentions certain "levels of understanding" corresponding to "the nature of penetration into the musical depths" ^{[1, p. 213]}, coming to the problem of the typology of perception, but does not continue the discussion, remaining with the generalized image of the listener. A.V. Toropova addresses the individual personal qualities of the listener, introducing the categories intonation form of personality, intonation vocabulary of personality, individual tools of sign intonation, integral individuality of intonation. The latter is divided into levels "manifesting personality: the organizational level, the level of the social "I" and the spiritual-personal" ^{[17, p. 269]}. Subtle and deep observations of the nature of musical consciousness, musicality as such, reveal important qualitative characteristics of a "musical" personality. But since everyone has their own "instruments of iconic intonation", it is hardly possible to talk about any types of musical consciousness or perception. Like the typology of performing styles, which has been reduced today to the category of individual style, musical psychology reduces all the diversity of artistic reception to the individual qualities of an individual ^[4],[2].

From musical imagery to musical perceptionThe musical horizontal unfolds in the form of melos and recitations, affects perception as a "syntactic" structure, revealing through the means of performing punctuation the discontinuity and coherence of short and extended constructions, communicates with it as a language.

It also acts directly, addressing the feeling, causing reciprocal bodily reactions. Being in incessant formation, the sound horizontal is likened to natural processes, thereby captivating the listener's perception, which in turn finds organic naturalness here, "learns" the truth of life in the truth of art. As A.V. Malinkovskaya correctly notes, "melodiousness, horizontal perspective, melosity – all these are ascending stages of reflection in music and performance of the dialectic of life processes, formation" ^{[8, p. 181]}. If melodic or recitative constructions can be compared with graphics in fine art, then vertical structures are likened to painting. Harmonies and harmonic complexes, sound texture reveal countless variations of color, astringency and softness, concentration and sparsity, etc. Also an important function is the temporary organization of the sound fabric – uniform or variable meter pulses and diverse rhythm figures. Thus, addressing the listener's feeling, horizontal and vertical constructions, metrical and rhythmic organization of music cause a response resonance in perception – an organic reaction of various affects.

The sound image can carry extra-musical content. Extra-musical connotations arise not in sound as such, but in the field of perception. The listener perceives and recognizes "words" and "phrases" from the "intonation dictionary of the epoch" (B. Asafyev), instantly understands the meanings of "migrating intonation formulas" (L. Shaimukhametova). Here, in addition to the bodily "response" and sensory "resonance", allusions and analogies are included in perception, cultural memory and synesthetic reactions are actively involved. This happens in the perception of program music and non-program compositions as well. Works that do not have a name or even a genre designation carry an impressive amount of extra-musical content. This volume is set by the centuries-old memory of tradition, is associated with organic human life processes, with natural phenomena and elements, with historical or social collisions, with other types of art, etc. Here works the memory of art and the memory of culture, historical memory and the experience of artistic perception of each recipient. In the perception of music in the context of extra-musical content, the conventionality of art becomes most obvious. The depth and completeness of perception depend on the cultural competencies of the audience, its listening experience.

Hearing works as an art of sounds does not imply any other connotations other than musical ones. In this perception, cultural memory is silent, analogies and associations do not come, affects remain on the periphery of consciousness. It does not seek meanings, does not seek understanding. Pure aesthetic contemplation is irrational, does not rely on experience and does not seek generalizations, lives in the present moment, in which the very essence of the musical idea that underlies every work of high style is revealed. V. Kandinsky recalled how, having abandoned the objective world, he learned "not to look at the picture from the outside, but to rotate in the picture himself, to live in it." He recalled how for many years he had been looking for "means to introduce the viewer into the picture so that he would rotate in it, selflessly dissolve in it" ^{[6, pp. 279-280]}. For Merab Mamardashvili, the perception of the same nature gives rise to a different effect – not of dissolving into the perceived, but going beyond the boundaries of oneself: "We think with them (objects of art) or in them (and they act ecstatically in us, ecstasize us)" ^{[11, p. 54]}. A kind of detachment from making art is experienced by some performing musicians, those of them who tend to trust the depths of intuition and irrational decisions. So Vladimir Sofronitsky said in an interview that he had to "go through so completely to die, and moreover maintain such a state, as if it wasn't me playing, and I had nothing to do with it. There must be some special calmness, and when you get up from the piano, it's as if you weren't playing" ^{[15, p. 77]}. As for the listener's perception of such an ecstatic kind, it is not available to everyone. And artistic competence has nothing to do with it, experience and knowledge of the details of art are not important. It requires a kind of giftedness, sensitivity and, most importantly, freedom from preconceived judgments, from right and wrong opinions. This phenomenon of silence, quiet contemplation, and in some cases, standing in front of an unknown, but clearly felt presence, can be based on affects, loaded with extra-musical connotations. Perception of this quality can pass through these stages and immediately turn to the essence of what sounds like a symbolic reality.

The most important quality of New European music is interpretativeness. This quality was one of the reasons for the emergence of the phenomenon of performance. Generations of musicians replace each other, generations of listeners come and go, and interpretations of famous, and sometimes textbook works are multiplying. Each of them actualizes long-composed music, while finding a modern sound. Many of them cause resonance in the audience. The musician consciously or unconsciously strives to meet the request of his listener. In other cases, the listener perceives in the interpretation what he is ready for, or what he can do. Anyway, the palette of ways to hear music is quite wide and multicolored. Is there an opportunity to understand it, to find connections with interpretation, connections with the sounding image? Is it possible to determine the patterns or principles of creating sound imagery corresponding to a particular way of perception?

The sounding image, the principle of conformity, the type of perceptionEvery typology operates with vivid qualities and characteristics in order to most accurately determine a particular group of phenomena.

Just as there are no pure temperaments in nature, but they are all mixed in one way or another, so in the typology of sounding images and their corresponding types of perception, it is impossible to find "sterile" analogues in real artistic practice. But we cannot do without forced simplifications and some schematization here.

No matter how diverse the concert life is, no matter how bright and "unique" the personalities of the artists are, the images created on the concert stage can still be divided into three large groups. These are affective, contextual and integrative images. They correspond to the principles of contrast, connections and the whole. It is with different kinds of contrasts that the musician operates, creating an affective image. He directly addresses the affects of his listener, causing shock by the extreme amplitude of the loud dynamics from thundering climaxes to the tenderest whisper. The sound perspective in this performance is intentionally deep and extremely transparent. Tempo contrasts are offered, causing a quickening of the heart pulse and deep agitated breathing in the listener. Contextual imagery avoids extremes that can obscure the structure of the sounding, distract from the music, get carried away by one's own feeling. However, it does not cancel sensory perception. But, following the outline of the unfolding intonation plot, it helps to recognize extra-musical content in music, causes allusions, and excites synesthetic reactions. As a result, such imagery is created in which various meanings are connected, it is possible to play with signs and symbols of art, the sounding is immersed in a wide context of meanings. Integrative imagery includes all affective effects, various kinds of analogies and extra-musical correspondences, awakens cultural memory. But at some point it turns out that above all this, going deep into the musical content, it rushes to the very center of the sound meaning to comprehend or accept an artistic idea. In integrative imagery, the principle of the whole operates: at every moment of sounding, we feel that we "hear" the whole work.

As a result, it is possible to identify the types of listener perception that can accommodate and creatively overcome a certain sounding imagery. It is necessary to determine the correspondence of the sounding image, the principle of its creation and the type of perception. So, the affective image created in accordance with the principle of contrast corresponds to the psychophysical type of perception. The contextual image and its principle of connections is an aesthetic type of perception. The integrative image, its principle of the whole, is a symbolic type.

ConclusionThe typology of musical perception is only outlined in this article.

As already mentioned above, there can be no symbolic, aesthetic, or psychophysical types of perception in its pure form. Once the listener is in the concert hall, he willy-nilly reacts to what is happening. He perceives music with feelings, resonating with what sounds in response; on the basis of experience, cultural memory awakens in him; freedom from bias and artistic sensitivity allow him to penetrate into the mysterious depth of a work of high style. In the proposed typology there are no indications of the stages of perception or its levels – lower, middle, higher. Each of the types corresponds to a special musical ability or even giftedness. They, like temperament, character traits or features of the mental structure are given to a person from birth. Some qualities suggest the possibility of development based on the accumulation of artistic experience. At the same time, feelings will always prevail in an emotional person. Thoughtful is capable of creating intertextual connections. The dreamy one is ready for free contemplation of an artistic subject.