The phenomenon of style in musical interpretation: the boundaries and scope of the concept

This article explores the phenomenon of style in musical interpretation. Style manifests itself primarily in the composer's notational text, then in the performer's interpretation, and finally in the listener's reception. The phenomenon of style relates to historical eras, the original languages of outstanding composers, and vivid performer interpretations. Styles represent specific structures that form through a process of self-organization. The structure of style presupposes the presence of stable elements. These can be characterized as textual (formal) and performance (qualitative). Both can be defined as both constants and fundamentally variable formations. The former are the result of the transmission of tradi-tion, the latter a manifestation of individual qualities. The construction of new meanings occurs through the means of an old musical language, in which highly developed homophony alternates with common forms of movement, and variability is accomplished according to fairly strict canons. The most important mental changes occur in sonata form, where the seeds of a new worldview gain strength. Despite the commonality of some ideas and many modes of expression, the ro-mantic era of piano art brought to musical culture a very bright originality of artistic individuals, each of whom possessed his own musical language, provided by a fairly wide range of technical means and performance techniques (the romantic “classicism” of F. Mendelssohn and K. Weber; the romantic universe, clothed in Viennese “clothes” of F. Schubert; the grandiose all fresco style and romantic impressionism of F. Liszt; the severe and tender style of the rebellious lyricist F. Chopin; the romantic dualistic worlds of R. Schumann; the Teutonic power and mystical lyricism of J. Brahms.