In everyday practice, interpreters of musical works are given names as performers according to their affiliation with a particular instrument: violinist, flautist and so on, as if they were its appendage (this is emphasised by the suffix -ist). In light of this tradition, the very person who is producing the music has grown accustomed to this position and distances themselves from the space of understanding beyond the realm of the instrument, forgetting that the instrument is only the means, the tool, by which its possessor fulfils the creative mission: the interpretation of works of music, drawing on the means of expression necessary for this act and, of course, the instrument under their authority. Unfortunately, interpretation is a rare word in the practice of performers. Most often, we are satisfied with the concept of performance, which presupposes a faithful conversion into sound of the textual signs, without getting too deeply into what these signs mean and what the relationship of the person realising them should be with their original cause, that is, the idea of the work, which should be understood—heard—and expressed accordingly. “Insignificance is almost always identified with the mechanical aspect of things and persons—with habit most often. In other words, everything eventually becoming habitual, one can be sure that the greatest thoughts and the greatest deeds eventually become insignificant.”Footnote 1 Thus, out of habit, we are satisfied with the surface information of the text, though this is only a semblance of the essence.

“The relativism widely espoused today is a profound mistake, even in some respects self-stultifying. It seems true that the culture of self-fulfilment has led many people to lose sight of concerns that transcend them. And it seems obvious that it has taken trivialized and self-indulgent forms.”Footnote 2 The dominance of mass culture, and its influence now on non-mass culture, serves to support this view. It is exemplified by the frequent concerts of “pop stars” with a symphony orchestra or other classical ensembles. The gratification of the taste of a particular part of society has descended into the exploitation of worthless hits. Widely established bands of various standards and configurations demonstrate not only bad taste but also poor control of their instruments and voices.

But instrumentism has become established also among performers of the classical genre, where the main focus of attention is so-called technical “accomplishment” as an end in itself, forgetting the purpose of both the technique and the instrument. According to Robert Schumann, “technical skill is of value only when it serves a higher purpose.”Footnote 3

The technical aspect, the instrument, is only a tool in a person’s hands, it cannot lead a person anywhere where they themselves do not go […].Footnote 4

“The fact that technology became operative and was universally adopted was due to [the] spiritual world, [the] way of thought and of life, which it found waiting for it.”Footnote 5 The concept of technique, based on etymology of the Greek word tékhnē, can be understood as a partial case of sophia, as specific knowledge of a particular field, and not only as a skill in a craft in the literal sense (the Greek tekhnikós meaning artistic, skilful; and tékhnē meaning art, craft, ability). The ability to use skills and means—and this is what a musical instrument is—for the purposes of art. “However usual and convincing the reference may be to the Greek practice of naming craft and art by the same name, technē, it nevertheless remains oblique and superficial; for technē signifies neither craft nor art, and not at all the technical in our present-day sense; it never means a kind of practical performance. The word technē denotes rather a mode of knowing. To know means to have seen, in the widest sense of seeing, which means to apprehend what is present, as such. For Greeks thought the essence of knowing consists in alētheia, that is, in the revealing of beings. It supports and guides all comportment toward beings.”Footnote 6 Instrumentism has acquired the status of a principle, where poor capacity of musical perception allows the performer to forget concern for themselves, making their mind a malleable instrument which serves only the will and forces of short-sighted traditions. There occurs “technicisation of the spirit in the form of utilitarian nihilism. […] External progress masks inner emptiness.”Footnote 7 The spiritual side of a person’s being becomes specialised and restricted, as mentioned above, to the service of the instrument—limited to the ability only to use its acoustic qualities, losing sight of its main purpose as a means—to serve the expression of the meaning of the works being interpreted.

The fate of the instrumental is to be the flattest surface. The closer the phenomenon of being, the more depth it has, since there is more being-in-itself; the closer the instrumental, the less depth it has, and more surface. The depth of the instrumental is negative, this is the depth of the not-yet-ability, of not-yet-knowing-of-how-to-use, of not-yet-recognition, of irrationality […].Footnote 8

When the energy of the meaning of being dries up, simulation takes its place. “To simulate is to feign to have what one hasn’t. […] Simulation threatens the difference between ‘true’ and ‘false’, between ‘real’ and ‘imaginary.’”Footnote 9 It is also to pretend that you understand what you are playing, but in reality you are only simulating. Everything acquires value as a substitute for something real—a simulation. It brings to mind Plato’s allegory of the cave and its eternal relevance.

It is not so easy to access metaphysical essence from empirical reality. Although people yearn for change, they want something real (musicians are no exception), yet at the same time have no tolerance for what is new or unusual. “A person who lives only at the pragmatic level is a solipsist, because they do not see anything transcendent for themselves. They see only the instrumental meanings of a thing or another person but they see neither the things themselves, nor the people themselves as substantive individuals.”Footnote 10 People look in on themselves in an attempt to understand the causes of inner discomfort or meaninglessness but do not suspect that these feelings are a subjective reflection of an objective spiritual crisis related to a loss of values. One can see in art the signs of dehumanisation: mass consciousness is taking hold. Musical expression is also becoming standardised; it is losing its uniqueness and specific value-based nuance, which only interpretation based on values and education, rather than instrumental short-sightedness, can offer. “One of the major confusions that the technical advances of our age have made possible, and that has even affected artistic practice in certain countries with particularly centralized bureaucracies, is the attempt to regulate performances so that the authentic version made by the composer or someone authorized by him becomes canonical along with all the particular tempi of that performance. In fact, the realisation of such a thing would spell the death of artistic reproduction and its substitution by means of some kind of technical equipment instead. Whenever we try to reproduce a work by simply copying the original and ‘authentic’ reproduction of someone else, we are falling back into a fundamentally non-creative form of activity which the listener will notice in time—if he still notices anything at all.”Footnote 11 The loss of personality as the basis of creation can be attributed to what Nietzsche predicted when he said that the masses have moved, and a human being has become like the mass.

The most radical division that it is possible to make of humanity is that which splits it into two classes of creatures: those who make great demands on themselves, piling up difficulties and duties; and those who demand nothing special of themselves, but for whom to live is to be every instant what they already are, without making an effort towards perfection; mere buoys adrift.Footnote 12 […] The mass is all that which sets no value on itself — good or ill — based on specific grounds, but which feels itself “just like everybody”, and nevertheless is not concerned about it; is, in fact, quite happy to feel itself as one with everybody else.Footnote 13

By affording a human being specialisation, civilisation has made them self-satisfied, blindly imprisoned in their own knowledge, with the limits of their craft. The rights of a “self-evident” thing are defended against any problematic claims. This can also be clearly discerned in the tendencies towards specialisation of musical studies. The hypertrophy of specialisation is forcing the subject of culture and general education out of the field of interests. Only a person who has become acquainted with common human values can make and understand culture, including musical culture. Culture speaks about the place of music within it, and music speaks about its place in culture. This dialogue expands the knowledge of music itself, of its separate elements and rules, and the expression in sound of what is understood on the basis of values.