Conductîr’s gesture: sign, symbol, meaning.
Setting of the problem. In contemporary music science, the vast majority of works about conducting are textbooks, instructional manuals and numerous journalistic works of various characters: biographies of conductors, their autobiography, reviews of various musicians about the work of conductors, and more. But the special researches, which studies the conductor’s gestures as a certain language of signs, opens the hidden content of the latter, systematizes the conductor’s gestures, considers the factors that determine one or another nature of movements of the conductor, do not exist. That is, we see a certain gap in the scientific comprehension of the conductorial art. The purpose of this article is to achieve a new level of understanding of the conductorial art’s components, in particular, the conductor’s gestures as a special language of signs. The following methods are used in this paper: system, semiotic and semantic approaches, comparative method. Results. Conductor’s gesture is a minimal moving component of the process of interpreting a musical composition, a kind of «intonation‑movement». The geometric elements, usually used as the symbols underlying the conductor’s gestures, are a point, a line, a triangle and a cross. The choice of these symbols is not accidental, it was the result of the search for the most logical, natural and clear conducting gesture. The sign component of the conducting gesture manifests itself in the formation of its own, independent, specific system of information, the so-called «sign language». Conductor’s gesture is a sign that is not limited to abstract conducting patterns, but enriches them substantially, creating a unique diversity of variants around these basic geometric symbols. The basic conductor’s patterns one can compare with the theme of variations. Depending on the genre of the composition conducted, its style, nature of music, composer’s and conductor-interpreter’s intent there are created a huge number of variants of these patterns, which give rise to the uniqueness of the sound of the music piece. Thus, the creative personality of the conductor, which cannot be copied mechanically, acts as the determining component of the conductor’s gesture. Tracing the links of conductor’s gestures and patterns with artistic and images scope of music, it is possible to reveal their content and semantics. In this connection, the meaning of conductor’s gestures one can consider from diverse points of view. One of the central elements in this list is synesthesia – the ability of a person to unite different feelings at the same time. That is why the characteristics of the conductor’s gestures based on the synthesis of different human feelings appear as valuable auxiliary means of orientation in their huge amount, the semantic indicators of conductorial art. Among conducting gestures we distinguish the most significant ones: up-beat, cut-off, climax, rest, and fermata; and complementary ones, those clarifying the necessary semantic meaning of a specific musical moment of the composition: sharp, prickly, printed, decisive, soft, mysterious, realistic, timid, narrative, etc. The systematization of conducting gestures can be supplemented on and on, which is the meaning and value of conducting art based on the search for the musical embodiment of the universe phenomena and depths of the human soul. Comparing the nature of music pieces, revealing common features of the sign and semantic nature of conducting gestures we will define their role in the process of disclosing the artistic content. Conclusions. As a result of studying a few scientific sources and generalizing our own observations, we will identify some factors that justify the creative actions of the conductors. All the diversity of conducting patterns one can be divide into two groups. In the first group there are tendencies to discretion of temporal organization of music. These include the gestures with sharp angles, which perform the role of a kind of caesura and separate one temporal stage of the musical process from the other. The other group tends to round off rough corners, to overcome the discreteness of the temporal organization. Conductor’s gestures in these patterns do not separate temporal stages, but present them in a holistic, undivided movement. The conducting patterns under consideration and the choice of conducting gestures are determined by the specific content of the musical and artistic images, the creative vision of the conductor-interpreter and the tasks posed. Highlighting possible directions of the further scientific study of the conductor’s gesture phenomenon, we assume that they lie in the plane of studying the factors that influence the choice of certain gestures of the conductor, connections with other kinds of art, in particular, choreography and pantomime. It may be interesting to compare conductor’s gestures of representatives of different conductor’s schools, countries and epochs.