Individual Performance Style of the Pianist in the Context of E. Erikson's "Identity" Theory

Abstract

The individual performance style of the pianist is considered from the standpoint of both conscious and unconscious advocacy of an adequate "my own personnality" in the network of perfect standards and aesthetic performance values of other pianists. It is proposed to interpret the specified phenomenon as a pianist's way of constructing in his imagination artistic images of musical works and their unique/original sound realization, taking into account the innate psychophysiological properties and acquired artistic and aesthetic values of the artist. It was found that the pianist's individual performance style enables the realization of his creative " my own personnality - concept" with a reflection of the influence of the most clear identification of its constructs both on the expressive and technical means of interpreting a musical work, and on artistry. The expediency of considering the identity of the pianist's individual performance style from the standpoint of identifying and differentiating the characteristic features of the pianist is substantiated. It is proven that the individual performance style of a pianist should be determined by: the presence of a system of his original/exceptional features, which enables the manifestation of both innate and acquired properties of the pianist in the process of interpreting musical works while preserving their authenticity; the conscious and unconscious defense of an adequate "self" in the context of the performance styles of other pianists; the immutability of reproduction of the fundamental features of the individual performance style of the pianist under any conditions and external influences aimed at their "identification" ("inflation", "dissolution in general") and "regressive restoration" ("capitulation" of the conscious attitude to the defense of individualization); the presence of a high level of fullness, differentiation and multi-vector nature of its features; the uniqueness of his features and their ability to complement each other with features of the performance styles of other pianists. The conditions for the manifestation of a complete system of features of the pianist’s individual performance style are defined in order to recognize its uniqueness. As a conclusion, the author describes the specifics of the application of methods of imitation and patterning, which help to reproduce features capable of ensuring the recognition of the created individual performance style of the pianist without "blurring" its leading differences among the performance styles of other artists involved in concert and stage activities.