The Singing Piano: Perceiving and Recognizing Musical Gestalt Structures in Historically Informed Chopin Interpretations

Gestalt theory posits that individuals perceive and memorize structural wholeness according to grouping principles. Musical interpretation styles may emphasize these entities. The current study analysed historically informed performances of four Chopin pieces that highlighted singing qualities (i.e., cantilena) and included more rubato compared with conventional interpretations of the same music that placed more emphasis on virtuosity. In a recognition task, listeners selected one of three structural motives that best matched the original piece. The historically informed cantilena style resulted in higher judgments of the Gestalt dimension “Praegnanz” (well-formedness), and predicted recognition for one out of the four excerpts in a binominal logistic regression. While the cantilena interpretation was slightly slower and included more tempo variation, virtuosity ratings did not differ from the conventional style. Depending on the composition and on participants’ experience, historically informed interpretation styles may thus influence memory for musical motives and the perception of Gestalt qualities.