Conceptual blending and music. How and what we think of the piano composition Singletrack by Paweł Szymański

Abstract

The theory of conceptual binding put forward by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner states that people blend together familiar concepts to create new ones, and then use the latter to think in broader or different contexts. This kind of thinking is accompanied by a number of constitutive and guiding principles, and among the integrated conceptual networks there are several types that recur. Conceptual blends occur in every discipline, including music. Paweł Szymański’s Singletrack for piano involves three kinds of such blends, concerning compositional process, intraopus style and meanings. In the case of compositional process, we are dealing with a hyperblend composed of three component networks, the first one being a double-scope network, which Fauconnier and Turner consider to be the most advanced type of creativity. I personally perceive the style of the work as a series of Baroque-modernist blends characterised by variable proportions of contrasting means. When it comes to semantics, as many as four meanings are mentioned and justified, comparing the work to the stages of human life, a track made by a bicycle on the sand, a bell effect and a cyclical phenomenon.