The question often arises—what is the meaning of something? There are many possible answers—depending on who is posing the question, and whether it is posed to others or oneself. Probably the most correct answer is that it is an act of striving for meaning, of moving towards it. This urge to strive for meaning can be considered one of the higher needs characteristic only of humans. After all, no one consciously performs meaningless actions. No one intentionally acts badly when they know what is good. Sadly, they often consider what they do to be good and sufficient. The challenge of the search for meaning has been unremitting ever since ancient times. About this Heraclitus (521–487 BCE) states:

Many people do not understand the sorts of thing they encounter. Nor do they recognize them even when they have had experience of them—though they themselves think they recognize them.Footnote 1

What determines musical expression? In the end, the search for the meaning of music, as well as its expression, is the revelation through sound of something internal, which is dependent not only on the requirements of the work as expressed by signs but also on many apparently uncharacteristic or unnecessary components of the subject of the music.

For me the impulse to search for the things which determine the expressiveness of music (and an impulse gives birth to an act) was prompted by a book by Boris Asaf’ev published in 1963, which I acquired even as a student, entitled Musical Form as a Process, and particularly its second part, Intonation.Footnote 2

The concept of intonation became for me an imperative of musical expression. I developed an understanding of intonation in a broad sense and of its expression as an instrument for feeling the spirit of a creative work (or part thereof)—the code of its emotion and meaning, which helped me to discover the means necessary for expression through sound. Asaf’ev described music itself as the art of intoned meaning.Footnote 3 If, therefore, the intonation of the work as it is interpreted does not reflect, through its own means, the idea of the work, such a phenomenon of sound cannot be called artistic. Unfortunately, the imperative of intonation is often understood in a trivial way, only as sounds which should come out “cleanly,” that is, as harmony (no one disputes that). In addition to intonation broadly understood, other actions come into the frame which are close or related to it: the modulation of sound, agogics and, finally, interpretation as a demand for action which, according to Antanas Maceina,Footnote 4 is akin to philosophy, since in his view to philosophise is to implement or activate a thought. A creative work comes into being through musical interpretation: the notes written by the composer only become music thanks to the person interpreting it.

The oldest documents of early philosophy show how daunting the path towards meaning is. Heraclitus, whom I have already mentioned, emphasised that all things and phenomena were governed by a constant becoming and disappearing (which is a close analogy to music as a temporal art), and also declared that everything that happens flows from a relation of tension between opposites.Footnote 5 How closely that fits the concept of the logic of musical structures! Aristotle emphasised the importance of theory for practical action:

[K]nowledge and understanding belong to art rather than to experience, and we suppose artistsFootnote 6 to be wiser than [those with experience] (which implies that wisdom depends in all cases rather on knowledge)Footnote 7 […]. For the experienced, indeed, know that a thing is so,Footnote 8 but they do not know wherefore it is so […].Footnote 9 Hence we think also that the masterworkers in each craft are more honourable and know in a truer sense and are wiser than the manual workers, because they know the causes of the things that are done.Footnote 10

A person striving for meaning in their own activity needs to have their own system of meanings or value base. An early orientation towards values is especially important because one’s first orientations of future activity have a big influence on one’s future perspective.

The slight knowledge and experience gained in childhood and youth afterwards come to stand as the permanent rubric, or heading, for all the knowledge acquired in later life,—those early forms of knowledge passing into categories, as it were, under which the results of subsequent experience are classified; though a clear consciousness of what is being done, does not always attend upon the process.Footnote 11

But this system of meanings is not a fixed, closed given; it is constantly affected by the cultural signs into whose environment the perceiver enters. This environment consists of documents and impressions, by which the life of the spirit is given objective reality, and forms the basis for reflection—reasoning based on what we try to understand through analysis. The concept of a system of meanings includes the development of professional skills, and the activation of intentions directed towards the establishment of meaning in activity. It is important to understand that

meaning is not a given, but a corollary, something to be achieved, in fact a process, a purposeful movement toward something [….]. To give meaning means to give direction; to be meaningful, in the sense of having direction (an intonated line of sound – J.R.), moving toward something, directed toward something and in this respect seeking it as a goal. And the converse is to be meaningless, in the sense of being disconnected, detached, without direction (intonational intention – J.R.), not seeking a goal (whatever that goal might be: matter or spirit, or a material or spiritual body or idea).Footnote 12

I want to draw attention to the relationship of the concepts “to know” and “to understand.” It is common to manipulate the concepts of the knowledge of information, to fetishise them. Schopenhauer too has observed:

Students and scholars of all kinds and of every age aim, as a rule, only at information, not insight. […] It never occurs to them that information is merely a means to insight, but in itself is of little or no value.Footnote 13

The same is true now, with both scholars and students. Even though they have completed studies at various levels, and “acquired” a lot of different kinds of knowledge, they have not, however, acquired the ability to use it, to understand how to apply it—they find it difficult to discern the meaning of the texts which they are to interpret. With a few exceptions, they are satisfied with only a two-dimensional understanding (in terms of pitch and metrical rhythm) of the texts of musical works.

If the youth really don’t care for causes that transcend the self, then what can you say to them?Footnote 14

Everyone who engages with music, of course, has hearing, but not everyone hears the music. On this Heraclitus says:

Uncomprehending, even when they have heard […], they are like deaf people. The saying “absent while present” fits them well.Footnote 15

A comment in the “Fragments” expands upon this statement:

Although such people are always in the presence of the all-embracing lógos, from which no one can hide, they are somewhere else completely, each in their own small world.Footnote 16

Systems of meanings determine the quality of both expression and judgement of taste. The judgement of artistic taste is only valuable when it forms part of an aesthetic understanding and exerts some influence upon it (whereas interpretation is also a judgement exercised in understanding how to organise the act of expression). If meaning emerges through expression, which is the result of understanding, one needs to inquire as to which components of the power of expression in the interpreter’s arsenal determine the quality of the act of expression.

I will therefore pursue this task by applying comparative and analogical methods to explain the problem. The understanding of music and the possibility of meaningful expression is a complex subject which engages many interests, abilities and characteristics of a person. It is not possible to single out any one trait or ability whose presence would mean there was already a qualitative relationship with the musical work. This also will be discussed in this book. It does not, however, claim to be a broad and comprehensive study of the subject of musical expression; it is only an interpretation and adaptation of my intentions and experience, and of the musical and extra-musical sources I have used, which in my view is necessary for a better understanding of the subject under consideration.