Creativity is one of the most topical but also one of the most complex psychological issues. Many researchers of creativity distinguish the cognitive aspect of creativity, where creativity is understood as an ability to discern problems, generate new ideas, think independently and originally, orientate oneself quickly and easily in a problematic situation, and find a unique (in our case, interpretive) solution to a problem. The degree of creativity is determined by one’s giftedness in a particular field. A gifted individual is a person who has acquired the ability to solve problems which arise in a unique and effective way. Inner motivation is especially important for creative behaviour—when a person is drawn into some activity without being influenced by gain or coercion, but because that activity offers the person satisfaction, and arises from an inner need. “Neither receptivity nor memory will ever produce knowledge in one who has no affinity with the object, since it does not germinate to start with in alien states of mind.”Footnote 1

Creativity is the skill of creating something new and valuable. Interpretation is a creative process, since each time a new shape of the work being interpreted is created. Creative people are able to use ideas to implement new solutions and to apply them with a view to supporting their substantive activity by their values. Action based on values enables acts to be performed which correspond to them in musical expression.

We are active when something takes place, in us or externally to us, of which we are the adequate cause; that is, when from our nature there follows in us or externally to us something which can be clearly and distinctly understood through our nature alone. On the other hand, […] we are passive when something takes place in us, or follows from our nature, of which we are only the partial cause.Footnote 2

We are a partial cause when we turn the text of the notes into sound merely passively, without understanding. A performer is creative at the moment when, in the realisation (interpretation) of the work, they do not apply the principle of copying, otherwise known as the principle of “following authorities” (imitation), but they themselves, relying only on the work’s text, find appropriate ways to express the idea of the work. “Other reproducers are satisfied with what has been settled of old. They go through life on well-trodden paths and in their work pursue their goal only by repetition. […] This category of artists satisfy only themselves and their type of listeners.”Footnote 3 The conditions for the emergence of creativity are based on openness to cultural experience, a deep need to pursue the harmony and meaningfulness of expression.

Experiences are the only source of human productivity. In order to give, one must first receive. All creative action is but the return of experiences to the world. You could even say—their recollection. Is this not what Plato had in mind, when he called creative action recollection? To recollect what you saw, what amazed you, what made you regain your sight. And that’s it… Our childhood experiences are paramount. But then, without us noticing, they sink into the depths of our soul and rest there like a butterfly in a cocoon. And later they rise from the depth, bright and polished, stones that have turned into diamonds.Footnote 4

Experience emerges, it rises from the subconscious. “Material is spontaneously stored in the subconscious which, under certain conditions, breaks through into clear consciousness.”Footnote 5

What is within a person can be understood to the degree to which it reveals itself—and it reveals itself through “gestures”, as if by signs. […] We are dealing with a psychological capacity which is […] fostered to a greater or lesser degree. It is composed of three factors: natural sensibility, educational completeness, and attentiveness.Footnote 6

Erich Fromm, who devoted much attention to the issue of creativity, distinguishes two meanings of the creative activity. The first is when something new is created. This type of creative activity is the result of talent, genes, learning, practice, as well as the economic and social conditions which enable a person to develop their talent. The second meaning of creative activity is a creative attitude, which can be manifested even without anything new being created. A creative attitude, or creativity as a character trait, is an ability to see or respond. This second approach is very close to interpretive expression, where, in a work which already exists, which has already been created, one is able to see “with one’s own eye” features which one seeks to express in one’s own way in the interpretive process.

Erich Fromm uses the term productive orientation. This is a fundamental attitude of the personality which manifests itself in all areas of human life. It includes reactions of the mind, of emotions and of feelings in response to other people, to oneself and to things and phenomena. Productivity is the ability to use one’s own strengths and to realize one’s latent potential. A person seeking to do this must be free and independent of anything which controls them. Such a person is guided by reason, because one can exploit one’s possibilities only by knowing what these are, and by understanding how and where one can use them; a person sees themselves as a creator, unique in their power which they can use to create.Footnote 7

Creativity determines self-expression, and self-expression assists the manifestation of creativity. Self-expression can be described as a person’s quest to be what they can become. Self-expression leads to the exteriorisation of abilities. “Impulses that promote behaviour are divided into creative and possessive. [An impulse is] creative when its aim is to produce something which otherwise wouldn’t be there and is not taken away from anybody else.”Footnote 8 Thus, when the model of another interpretation is copied, this is to be called a possessive impulse. How often this happens. I listen (which is particularly easy these days) to how someone plays what I intend to play, and remembering, or even noting, certain articulatory moments, I imitate.

Individuality, distinctiveness—and, therefore, creativity—are determined by a relationship of understanding with the text of the interpreted work. Only the text is the basis and cause of the interpretive and, therefore, creative act.

The creative approach must also be towards oneself, because a person wants (should want) to be different, to be expressing self adequately in different artistic situations. A feeling of self-sufficiency, a trivial relationship with the different works, precludes a broader approach to one’s activity; it means condemning oneself to creative stagnation—to banal fulfilment-performance, and not to creative interpretive expression. One needs to stop acting without understanding, and to start acting by thinking ahead about the result of the action.

An artist must have a rich inner life; so that they can create in themselves their own inner world, from which they can draw the first images for their works. In this inner world they must empathetically breathe life into the creatures of their imagination and give them a feeling, a mood and endeavour. Besides an inclination to deep empathy, an artist must have a deep subconscious life, which will be a rich support for their artistic inspiration and artistic intuition, and which should have agility to reconcile easily with the work of conscious creation. Finally, an artist must have a natural inclination to create in accord with aesthetic norms […].Footnote 9

It should be understood that creation involves the whole soul, a person’s whole essence (the essence manifests itself!), it requires total energy. Creation is the process of a person’s way of life, their consciousness, motivation, evaluation of phenomena, and choice of interpretive variations. The more an individual is able to open themselves to experience, and to develop it, the greater their creative powers. The process of creation can be defined as the unique product which emerges in the act of interpretation. The uniqueness emerges from objective experience, which is filtered through an individual’s perception and emotions.

For a better understanding of the creative essence of the interpretive act, two semantic constructs should be distinguished: experiencing and experience. “To experience means to be surprised. You are surprised and straightaway you inquire, and inquire not with your tongue but with your whole being.”Footnote 10 Owing to the similarity of these words, their concepts are often considered identical. However, experiencing opens up beings which are manifesting themselves here and now. Experience is a semantic construct in which knowledge, abilities, skills, ways of acting, values, attitudes, principles etc., which are important to a person, are accumulated. This is the fundamental—acquired and perceived—totality which allows experiencing—that is, what is experienced here and now—to be realised. Aesthetic experiencing turns a work of art into an aesthetic object and gives it a being of full value. Experience provides the impulse for the development of interpretive practice of experiencing. Experience is connected with what is termed by several phenomenologists and hermeneutic philosophers as “understanding in advance” or “meaning in advance” (Husserl, Heidegger, Ricoeur). It is thus only by previously understanding something that a new understanding and the establishment of a new interpretive act is possible. The values stored in experience embody a person’s semantic, value-based self, one’s intentions, and the attitudes which guide one’s activity. Experience is the totality of a person’s knowledge and skills, which provides the impulse for practical expression.

The creation of beauty—which is also the sonic interpretation of the musical work—requires aesthetic experiencing, which

ought (1) to be obtainable commonly through, or in, the cognition of instances of art, (2) to be obtainable in their most pronounced character from [instances of art] that have been judged to be outstanding examples of their kind, and (3) to be obtainable in some degree from other objects or situations […] that are often grouped with [instances of art] in respect to an interest we take in them.Footnote 11

This last statement should be understood as meaning that it is desirable to use information indirectly touching on our subject, but which is also helpful for a better understanding of our subject according to the principle of analogy. Acts through which we experience form the basis of our experience. This depends upon the quality of our experiencing: is what we experience of value?

The creative nature of interpretation is confirmed by one of the main premises for the existence of a creative act—the incomplete character of the work. “One can only create when the being is becoming, that means, when it is not yet completed, because what is already completed is not becoming and is not therefore capable of being created.”Footnote 12 A musical work is only considered “completed” when it sounds—although its “completion” can be continued in another interpretation. The text of the work provides the material for the interpretive creative act. But, in Maceina’s view, the material is not only a support for the creative act but also an obstacle. The performer has to overcome not only the mental, but also instrumental, opposition of the form: to apply the instrumental technology in an appropriate way for the solution of the artistic challenges. “Every creator tries to overcome the inert nature of the material and to subordinate it to their ideas as their spiritual inspiration demands. […] A creative act, so long as it is in the depths of the spirit, tries to reveal itself in a visible form; it tries to embody itself in the material.”Footnote 13

The main condition for creative activity is freedom. “Freedom must keep one step ahead of that which threatens to constrain it.”Footnote 14 The ability to be free is the ability to create. “Freedom in a positive sense and with a positive meaning is creation. […] If we assert that the surge of energy emerges in creation, this assertion can only be correct only if we agree that creation happens freely.”Footnote 15 The first shoots of energy cannot exist in the act which is determined and defined by the signs, since here, in advance, there is only what is sought, what is sufficient.

The experience of the artist, based on their studies, their creative practice and conscious consideration, eventually forms a kind of second nature, which fully spontaneously manifests itself entirely consistently throughout the creative activity. This spontaneous, consistent manifestation in the creative activity of the artist’s experience is nothing other than latent thinking, or thinking occurring in the depths of the consciousness, and which is very often more valuable during creative periods than conscious consideration.Footnote 16

Existence is inseparable from freedom as an opportunity to create not only art but also one’s own life as an opportunity to project oneself. Life is constant movement beyond oneself—of broadening one’s cultural space. Without this constantly self-renewing cultural environment, things (and signs) would remain silent, and we would remain closed, and thus immobile and timeless beings, feeding only on our own inner resources acquired in the form of talents. But if those talents are not supplemented externally, from relevant sources, they will not turn into abilities, and without certain abilities, not only creation but also its understanding, as the basis of interpretation, is impossible. “The aspiration of the person to transcend themselves does not appear in any kind of agitation, but in a denial of the selfhood which would shut it up in an autarkic world of its own, dependent upon its isolated will. The person is not absolute being, but a movement of being towards itself, and has consistency only in the being that it is moving towards.”Footnote 17 The existence of creation is a universal fact. The question is only what value that creation has. This is determined by the quality of the person creating.