Varietal instrumental style as a performance-related phenomenon (case study: saxophone)

This article substantiates the legitimacy of using the notion of “instrument’s style” in music performance studies. It was noted that the global nature of the style aspect in the system of artistic work pre-envisages its application to the field of organology – the science of instruments as “tools” or “organs” of musical thinking – as well. It was emphasized that, being part of the man-made, “second” nature, instruments per se do not have a style but represent its determinants within the framework of the notional axiom “style is person” (according to Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon). The instrument’s style is represented by creative personalities who create and perform music. This article generalizes and systemizes information about musical style in its extension onto the level of varietal instrumental stylistics, where the main classification criterion is the ratio between universalism and specifics of performance-related sound image. The article offers an original notion of “varietal instrumental style” that provides basis for the study of particular varieties and representations (in this case, saxophone) of this phenomenon. It was noted that a new system of perceptions of musical interpretation arises within the framework of music performance studies, thus causing special interest in varietal specifics of an instrument as the most important component of interpretation performance process. Performance of music is thought of as a true creative act in which the figure of interpreter stands out, represented in several versions: performing as such, mixed (composing-performing or performing-composing), and improvising. It was emphasized that comprehensiveness of the “style” category allows to extend its applicability to all (without exception) means of expressive-constructive complex of music, which in a concrete composition are manifested at the stylistics level. Among the most important stylistic components of a piece of music are instruments which do not have a style themselves but represent its determinants objectively existing in the practice of public music playing of various eras and periods, countries and regions. Complex properties of instruments are studied within the framework of a relatively new field of music studies called “organology”. According to an organological approach, instruments appear in their wholesome quality that includes timbre-acoustic and image-semantic values and characteristics, enabling them to be considered at the level of varietal style – the style of any music varieties (according to Valentina Kholopova). It was noted that musical instruments are dual by their nature. On the one hand, they are artifacts of civilizational culture categorized as phenomena of the “second”, man-made nature. On the other hand, they require obligatory presence of a human being – a performer-interpreter in whose work they get “humanized” (according to Boris Asafyev) and attain the qualities of style. Such an interpretation of the “instrument’s style” category can be found more and more often in music study works devoted to particular varietal instrumental styles: piano, guitar, violin and other. This article notes that the notion of “instrument’s style” correlates not only with the generalized perception of musical style with its branching into hierarchical levels but also with stylistics of a musical composition perceived as the set of the means of implementing a genre-style idea in the text of a musical image: composing (notational) and performing (acoustic). As a result, we have the notion of instrument stylistics existing within the wholesome system “instrument = musical composition” (according to Boris Asafyev). It was emphasized that instruments, like the style in general, are “material”, i.e. they are perceived sensibly, acting as objects of reality embodying intentions of author’s and performer’s artistic design. It was proved that in varietal instrumental stylistics, the most important aspect is the belonging of an instrument to a particular family and its correlation with instruments of other families. As for the saxophone style, its distinctive features from this viewpoint will include: a) characteristic particularities of sound image reflected via timbre and semantics (“timbre labels” according to Alexander Veprik), b) interim position within the system of aerophones – brass and wooden wind instruments. It was emphasized that parameters of the stylistic structure of a musical composition always correlate with its texture measured vertically, horizontally and depth-wise. The textural “configuration” always includes an instrument as the carrier of its intrinsic stylistics: historical, genre-specific, national, “personal”. Therefore, when reviewing a varietal instrumental style, including the saxophone style highlighted in this article, one has to use the following criteria: a) organological, b) varietal, c) genre-stylistic. On that basis, the article offers an original definition of the saxophone style as a performance- and composing-related phenomenon aggregately reflecting timbre-acoustic and image-semantic properties of an instrument, distinguishable for: a) interim position between wooden and brass aerophones, b) peculiarity of sound image tending toward universalism, i.e. toward assimilation of properties of a whole number of other musical instruments, and of not only wind but also other groups. The article’s concluding remarks note that saxophone stylistics manifest themselves the most fully in jazz, where this instrument is represented in the entire diversity of its artistic and technical capacities at the level of improvisation art that revives, at the new “orbit” of historical-style spiral, the centuries-old practice of musical instrumentalism.