The composer’s interpretation: the dialectic of inner and outer factors
Authors: Kashyrtsev Ruslan 
Published: March 2021

Background. Consideration of a composer interpretation is an important sphere for investigation in the Ukrainian musicology. In this article, attention focuses on the interaction of a composer’s artistic individuality (the inner factor) and objective prerequisites of creation a musical piece (the outer factor) in the process of a composer interpretation. Their dialectical interaction is showed on the designed models-scenarios, which display typical situations a composer may encounter in his/ her work. Special attention is paid to differentiation of procedures of the actual composition art and the composer interpretation. The conventional view on the composer interpretation anticipates “the intermediation” between already existing primary source of musical and non-musical origin. In this concept the interpretation plays a significant role in a creation of compositions in “the genre of musical transcription” (Borisenko, 2005; Khutorska, 2009; Moskalenko, 2012). However, the nature of this phenomenon prove itself to be much more complicated and elusive as it’s clear from the studies dedicated to certain personalities (Drach, 2002; Kopytsia, 2018) or the process of composer’s art in general (Mukha, 1979; Schnittke, 1982; Shapovalova, 2008; Varnava, 2017; Chubak, 2017). The objective of the present study is to clarify the dialectical interaction of inner and outer factors of the composer interpretation. The conception of this article is built on the base of such methods as analysis, systematization and structuring, the method of modeling . Research results. The artistic idea itself is an abstract, somewhat blurred image of a future composition. This idea receives its “embodiment” in the text as “a translation from foreign language of the original, which remains intangible” (Schnittke, 1982: 105). The necessity of such “a translation” means that process of musical interpretation is involved not only for the reworking of any artistic piece written by another author, but for the own artistic conception built. However, terms of the composer’s interpretation and the composer’s art are not identical. Composer’s art includes 1) a production of structural musical elements and 2) their synthesis into organized system. The process of interpretation is involved on every stage of composer’s work as a mean of comprehension (understanding, analysis, reflection) of 1) an artistically-imaginative potential, 2) a meaningfulness and 3) an appropriateness to given artistic task of those musical text which the composer produces and synthesizes. The last one ensures a modeling (a setting of certain borders for artistic intent, “a designing”) – a reviewing of plans, a comparison of real and anticipated results etc. The process of interpretation transpires as a dialectical interaction between the composer’s artistic individuality (inner factor) and the objective prerequisites for creation of musical piece (outer factor). The first one has certain parameters, which could be classified as: – professional parameters (the musical individuality): 1) “the power of imagination” (capability to generate ideas and give musical embodiment to them), 2) “musical abilities”, 3) “knowledge and skills” (theoretical, practical and scientific), 4) “the experience” (of musical performance, listening of own / other authors’ compositions), 5) “tools and means” (methods and approaches to work); – non-professional parameters (the personal-artistic individuality): 6) “the motivation” (as a feature of the personality), 7) “the emotionality” (perception and empathy), 8) “the intelligence” (watchfulness, circle of interests); 9) “the outlook” (general attitude to life), 10) “the health” (physical and mental). The objective prerequisites for creation of musical piece (the outer factor) consists of two main components: – the artistic task is appearing due to the need for the musical piece to be made, and it could be 1) given from a third person / a group of people (customer) or 2) initiated by a composer himself / herself (“self-ordering”). – objective circumstances – working conditions, organizational issues, distracting and stressing factors which could influence on the artistic task, speed up or slow down the work, or even pose a threat for a piece creation. A comprehensive coverage of all combinations of objective circumstances is hardly possible within one article (it seems to be more effective to consider this in certain cases). Thus, it’s reasonable to pay the attention to the artistic task, which depends from the customer type and could be classified. And it’s possible to create models of typical scenarios of interaction between the composer and the customer. 1) Scenario no. 1: “own idea – own musical piece”. The composer initiates his / her own project, generates and embody idea. An important feature is that the composer sets the artistic task to himself / herself in case of “self-ordering”, which means that a composer needs to evaluate the work done as from “outside”. This is a significant manifestation of the composer’s interpretation in this situation. Another specific feature is in a strong willing to make a composition as an action of self-expression – he / her become “possessed” with this artistic project which remains in the consciousness as an “unfinished business” must be done. Moreover, a probable risk of failure or / and public disregard does not stop the composer. 1) Scenario no. 2: “given direction from outside – idea – composition”. In this situation the role of the customer (-s) appears, but the artistic task set by him / her / them does not restrain the composer within strict borders. According to “the given direction”, the artist is free to choose stylistics, genre, musical means of expression etc. And this type of customer (he /she might be a performer, a music fan, a festival director or a participant etc.) is interested in creation and performance of this musical piece. So, this sort of the artistic task gives a freedom for selfexpression with partners’ support. Obviously, the project’s success depends from its reliability and objective circumstances. But, the artistic cooperation becomes a valuable experience for the composer and also gains popularity, thus could offer new opportunities for the further career development. 3) Scenario no. 3: “idea of the project author – composer’s interpretation – musical piece”. The composer cooperates with the type of customer who has own idea and own view of artistic task completed. This kind of situation is seemingly common for various commercial projects – music for movies, videogames, theatre shows (an initiative of a theatre), dance music, background music etc. The interaction in the sphere of symphony orchestra music could be also built on these principles. The customer is focused on commercial and / or public success and additional risks are highly unwanted. The composer’s work gains an interesting particularity, because the interaction “composer – customer” becomes more active. In such a case, a collision between artistic interests seems inevitable, because, from the one side, there is the artistic individuality as the inner factor of the composer’s interpretation, and from other side – the objective (for the composer) prerequisites for creation of musical piece, which, at some points, depend on the customer as a source of artistic initiative, thus artistic task and some part of objective circumstances. 4) Scenario no. 4: “teacher – student”. This variant of interaction could contain features of all the scenarios modeled before. An interesting particularity of this situation is that the teacher acts in a role of the customer, who, at the same time, is interested in success of student’s musical project. The teacher will model such artistic tasks which could raise the level of the student as a composer – develop parameters of his artistic individuality (moreover, not only the professional, but the non-professional too). The conflict of artistic interests is possible to appear in described scenarios (in case of self-ordering – the inner conflict). This would lead to significant change of musical projects or even failure. However, this promising topic is better to be investigated in further studies. Conclusions. The comprehension of the interpretational component in composer’s art allows to approach not only to comprehension of single artist’s personality principles of development, but to understanding the process of creation of a musical composition in general. Every written piece is a unique example with its own history of creation and later existence. Though not all of compositions gain public approval, every act of the true artistic self-expression is valuable for the author and raises him / her on a new level as a professional and a person. Because, “the process of author thinking” involves the whole spectrum of person’s experience and is “a way of self-fulfillment of a person who cognizes the world” (Shapovalova, 2008: 9)