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The Swan by Arnold Steinhardt 与《天鹅》有关的故事 小提琴家阿诺德·斯坦哈特回忆 ▲ 阿诺德·斯坦哈特 小提琴家 阿诺德·斯坦哈特出生在洛杉矶。他在14岁时就和洛杉矶爱乐乐团合作，完成了他的首演。在柯蒂斯音乐学院学习期间，他先后师从于伊凡·加拉米安和约瑟夫·西盖蒂。 1958年，斯坦哈特赢得了列文垂特大奖。后作为独奏家与美国各大交响乐团合作，如克利夫兰交响乐团，他受邀在克利夫兰交响乐团担任助理首席小提琴手（1959-1964年）。1964年瓜奈利弦乐四重奏成立，斯坦哈特任第一小提琴手，他一直担任这个岗位直到2009年四重奏解散。阿诺德·斯坦哈特现任教于柯蒂斯音乐学院，巴德学院音乐学院和科尔本音乐学院。本文选自他的私人博客In the Key of Strawberry 点击文末阅读原文。 When I was eleven years old, my violin teacher assigned me The Swan by Camille Saint-Sa?ns. I had no idea that The Swan was a famous cello solo or that it was part of a much larger work, “The Carnival of the Animals.” I had never even heard of its composer, Saint-Sa?ns, or seen his name in print before. I wondered why there was a funny line between his two-word last name and what could be the purpose of those strange dots perched on top. And was Saint-Sa?ns actually a saint? 当我11岁的时候，我的小提琴老师给我布置了圣-桑的《天鹅》。当时我并不知道这首《天鹅》是一支著名的大提琴独奏曲，也不知道它来自一部更大的作品《动物狂欢节》。我从来没听说过这位作曲家圣·桑，也从来没在文章报纸里看过这个名字。我常常很好奇，在他由两个字组成的姓氏里为什么会有一根看起来很滑稽的横线，那上面写着的奇怪的点又代表了什么，还有，这个圣·桑真的是一个圣人吗？ I thought that The Swan was very pretty and probably associated the music’s title with its general mood in some vague way. As a child, I often saw swans gliding regally through the water on the lake near where I lived. Accompanied by the piano’s gently rippling arpeggios, Saint-Sa?ns alluring melody seemed to convey the swan’s very essence. 我认为这首曲子很美，而且也许在某种程度上这个标题与这首其曲子的总体情绪以一种模糊的方式联系了起来。当我还是孩子的时候，我常常在我家附近的湖边看着天鹅们如帝王般地在湖面上巡游。在钢琴琶音织体柔和的伴奏下，圣·桑这迷人的旋律似乎表达出了天鹅这种美丽生物的本质。  I must have heard dozens of student cellists play The Swan in my teenage years but I gave it little thought. I was a violinist after all, not a cellist. Later on, however, a chance set of circumstances brought me face to face with the work. While I was assistant concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra, I shared a house for a period of time with Jules Eskin, its principal cellist. 在我小时候我一定听过无数大提琴学生演奏过《天鹅》，不过我并没多么放在心上，毕竟我是一个小提琴演奏者。然而后来，一系列的偶然让我与这个作品正面相遇了。当我还是克利夫兰管弦乐团副首席小提琴手的时候，我跟首席大提琴手朱尔斯·埃斯金是室友。有一天早晨我们喝咖啡时，他告诉我《动物狂欢节》已经被安排上我们的日程，届时他会演奏这段大提琴独奏曲目。 Over coffee one morning, Jules told me that The Carnival of the Animals had been scheduled for a future concert and that he would be playing the cello solo. From that point on, Jules practiced The Swan daily. The snippets of phrases I occasionally heard as I passed in and out of our house sounded beautiful, but Jules, apparently unsatisfied, continued to work on The Swan. I was amused at first. Granted, it was a lovely melody but how much time can one devote to something so simple, so na?ve. 从那之后，朱尔斯每天都练习《天鹅》。当我进出我们的房子时，我偶然听见的每一乐句、每一片段都被他演奏得如此动听，但是朱尔斯显然对他的演奏很不满意，依旧日以继夜地练习。一开始我被逗乐了，无疑，这首曲子的旋律无与伦比，但是也非常简单甚至幼稚，很难想一个人能为这样的旋律投入多少时间精力。  One day, Jules called me into the living room where he practiced and asked my advice on how to shape a particular phrase. He played the phrase and looked up questioningly. To the best of my recollection, it sounded utterly convincing in Jules’ hands and for the moment, I could think of nothing to say. “Here’s another idea,” Jules said. Let me play it again and tell me which is better.” He played the same phrase a bit differently. There was a small but discernable difference. “I think I like the first version better.” 有一天，朱尔斯把我叫进了客厅——他经常在那儿练习，并想问问我对怎样处理某个特殊的乐句的意见，他先演奏了那个乐句，然后渴望地看向我，据我记忆之所及，那个乐句被他演奏得极具说服力，在那个瞬间，我想不到任何意见可以提。“还有另一种演奏方法”朱尔斯说道，“我再拉一遍，然后你告诉我哪种方法更好”。他又演奏了同样的乐句，不过这次演奏得稍许不同了。这个“不同”并不那么明显，但也可以被察觉。“我觉得第一个版本会更好”。 Jules nodded and played the phrase once more but in a softer, far more intimate manner. “Ah,” I said. “That was beautiful. But what if you played more intensely in the middle and relaxed at the end.” Jules tried the phrase once again. “Hmm,” he said. “I’m not sure that’s an improvement.” I was beginning to get involved. “Well, you might also try a tighter vibrato at the onset and as you let it go, let the bow drift more toward the fingerboard.” Jules played it yet again. “Interesting idea,” he said thoughtfully, “but I’m still not sure what would be best. Thanks for listening, anyway.” Our discussion about a section of music lasting no more than fifteen seconds had taken easily five minutes. 朱尔斯点了点头，然后又以一种更为轻柔、更为甜蜜的方式演奏了一遍这个乐句。“啊”我说，“你演奏得美极了，但是如果你在中间部分更紧凑然后在结尾部更松弛的话说不定会更好”。朱尔斯又弹奏了这个乐句，他说“我不觉得这样会更好”，我对他的讨论变得感兴趣了起来。“也许，你可以在开始的地方做一个更紧凑的颤音，当你结束颤音后，让你的琴弓向指板的方向更靠近一些”。朱尔斯于是又尝试了一遍。“很有趣的想法”他略有所思地说，“但我还是不确定那种方式更好，不过，很感谢你的建议”。仅对一段不超过15秒的音乐片段我们就进行了五分钟的讨论。  The Swan’s shapely contours and enticing harmonies refused to leave me as I left the house. The melody, a full three minutes in length, gave the illusion of being disarmingly simple and yet, was it really so simple? Jules and I, behaving like scientists looking at a specimen under a microscope, couldn’t even agree on a single phrase. 当我离开我们的家后，“天鹅”那美妙的身姿和迷人的旋律却一直萦绕在脑海，久久不能忘怀。整首曲子不过三分钟长，给人一种毫无戒备的简单明了之感，但是，它真的就那么简单吗？朱尔斯和我就像是在显微镜下观察标本的科学家一样仔仔细细，但我们却甚至不能对一个简单的乐句达成共识。 The next morning at breakfast, Jules and I pushed other subjects to the side and began discussing The Swan in more detail. Since our last conversation we had independently come up with new ideas. Jules quickly became impatient. “Let me just play the whole thing for you. Then we can talk.” He took out the cello and bow and played Saint-Sa?ns’ melody from beginning to end. Jules’ playing was ravishingly beautiful but he shook his head as the last note faded away and suggested several possible phrasing alterations both small and large. 第二天早餐时间，朱尔斯和我将其他事情放在一边，又一同讨论起有关《天鹅》的更多细节。从上个讨论开始至现在，我们又提出了各自不同的观念，朱尔斯开始有点不耐烦了，“让我将整首乐曲给你演奏一遍，然后我们在来谈论”，他说。他拿出了大提琴和琴弓，然后将圣-桑的这首曲子从头到尾拉了一遍。朱尔斯的演奏无可挑剔，但当最后一个音渐渐消逝，朱尔斯摇了摇头，并又提出了许多大大小小的乐句修饰方法。  Unfortunately, everything in music is connected. Change one note or one phrase even slightly and everything around it has to be re-evaluated. Our discussions became lengthier and more detailed. The Swan’s possibilities seemed endless. In the coming days, Jules continued to practice and I stepped into the living room more and more. An eves-dropper might have thought we were probing the depths of a late-Beethoven string quartet. 但是，音乐中的一切都是牵一发而动全身的，哪怕只是轻微地改变一个音符或一个乐句，所有与之相关的一切都得被重新编配。我们的讨论也变得越来越细致，越来越漫长，《天鹅》潜在的可能性似乎无穷无尽。接下来的几天中朱尔斯不停地练习《天鹅》，而我走进客厅的次数也越来越多。不知道的人还以为我们在讨论贝多芬晚期的弦乐四重奏的深刻性。 Jules performed the Swan beautifully, but I also came away from the concert with a new-found respect for what Saint-Sa?ns had fashioned. A great melody—anything from Taps to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy—has a palpable structural integrity, a sense of proportion, an unerring rightness to it. As Jules spun out The Swan’s extended melody accompanied by the gently rocking arpeggios scored for two pianos, I had the sense that every note and every phrase was in its rightful and inevitable place. Saint-Sa?ns must have thought so, too. This is the only movement from the Carnival of the Animals that he found worthy enough to be played in public during his lifetime. 朱尔斯的《天鹅》无与伦比，美妙至极，当我听完音乐会后我对圣-桑想表达的内涵有了新的理解。伟大的音乐——无论是从《安息号》还是到贝多芬的《欢乐颂》，都具有明确完整的结构、完美的均衡感和正直无畏的感觉。朱尔斯在两台钢琴摇曳的琶音伴奏下拉奏着《天鹅》那优美的旋律（这首《天鹅》是被扩展了的），我感到每一个音符、每一个乐句都处在它们最应该出现也是最无法替代的地方。圣-桑一定也想到了这一点。朱尔斯认为《天鹅》是《动物狂欢节》中最值得他在公众面前倾心演奏的那唯一一个乐章。  Long after the event, David Cerone, the then president of the Cleveland Institute of Music, asked me to give a violin master-class at the school. He asked me to choose the repertoire. I hadn’t thought of The Swan in years but somehow it popped into my head. Remembering the labor Jules had put into The Swan and thinking that these young fiddlers might be challenged, I suggested it to David. He smiled, clearly taken aback, thought about it for a minute, and then amiably agreed. 这件事过去很久以后，克利夫兰音乐学院的主席大卫·切罗尔让我在学校里开设一门小提琴大师课，他让我选择一首曲目。虽然我已经很久没有再提及过《天鹅》了，但那时，这首曲子突然闪现在脑海，回想起朱尔斯在这首曲子上下的功夫，我想这些年轻的乐手们可能会被它难倒，我便跟大卫说就是它了。大卫显然吃了一惊，但想了一会儿后，亲切地笑着同意了。 At the appointed hour, approximately fifteen violinists and one piano accompanist filed into the conservatory auditorium. I can only imagine what the students thought of their assignment. Master-classes usually deal with serious repertoire—a Beethoven violin and piano sonata or a Bach work for solo violin, for example—but The Swan? The Cleveland Institute of Music, one of the country’s premier music schools, has always had first-rate violin students and this group was no exception. 到了上课的时候，大约15名小提琴学生和一名钢琴伴奏员进入了学校礼堂。不难想象学生们都是怎么看待他们这次的作业的。大师课一般都会讲解一些很严肃庄重的曲目，例如贝多芬的小提琴及钢琴奏鸣曲、巴赫的小提琴独奏曲等，但是《天鹅》？克利夫兰音乐学院是全美最顶尖的音乐学院之一，拥有一流的小提琴学生，这个集体无疑在列。 Fifteen times, the accompanist played those gently rocking opening notes, and one by one, fifteen violinists played The Swan. Some performed with mechanical precision, some displayed a solid musicality, yet none managed to play in a way that I could honestly call affecting. 十五次，伴奏员弹奏了十五次《天鹅》那轻轻荡漾的开头，这些学生们也一个接一个地演奏了这首乐曲。一些学生显示出了机械般的准确性、有些学生体现了他们扎实的音感，但没有一个学生的演奏能让我感到动人。那一刻，这只天鹅打败了所有人。
For the moment, The Swan had defeated them all. One of our tasks as musicians is to examine the elusive structure of a melody, the most basic building block of music, and to take it apart note for note, phrase by phrase, in order to understand it as best we can. Then we must put it back together cohesively and affectingly. The students and I worked for the next two hours to uncover the music’s essence, to turn groups of notes into the regal bearing of a swan- precisely what Jules had done as he practiced those many years ago. 作为音乐家，我们的基础任务之一就是去剖析乐曲复杂的结构——这是音乐最基础的架构，将每一个音符、每一个乐句都拆解开来，以便我们更好地去了解乐曲。接着我们必须将它们以一种紧密而又引人入胜的方式黏合起来。我和学生们在那节课接下来的两小时内一同挖掘这首乐曲的本质，将拆分开的一组组音符转化为天鹅优雅的姿态，正如几年前朱尔斯所做的那样。 I would not be entirely accurate or fair without mentioning one specific student who participated in the class that day. Mary Hess, a double major in both violin and voice, had played The Swan reasonably well, but it occurred to me that she might sing it quite differently. Mary obliged by placing her violin and bow in its case and repositioning herself on stage without instrument. The pianist played the opening harmonies once again and Mary sang the entire Swan for us with simple yet affecting beauty. Teachers are forever coaxing students to rise above their chosen instrument and sing. Mary did so literally and for those unforgettable moments, she became the swan itself. 如果我不提及那天课上一个特别的学生的话，那我也就太不谨慎公平了。玛丽·赫斯，一个修着小提琴和声乐双专业的学生，那天她的《天鹅》演奏得很美，但是我突然想到她如果唱出来可能会有很不一样的效果。于是玛丽被要求将她的琴和弓放回琴盒，然后又回到台上。伴奏员又弹起了同样的开头，玛丽为我们唱起了《天鹅》，简单，但是精彩绝伦。老师总是“哄骗”学生们去超越自己所选择的的乐器而去唱歌，玛丽在那时真就这么做了，然而她在那个难忘的时光里就变成了天鹅它自己。
Jules Eskin has been the principal cellist of the Boston Symphony for many years and I live in New York City, yet we still manage to see one another occasionally. I brought up our Swan encounter recently. To my surprise, Jules had no recollection of the fierce battle he once waged with a swan in his living room some fifty years ago. The event must have made some subliminal impression on him, however. 朱尔斯·埃斯金成为了波士顿交响乐团的首席大提琴家很多年了，而我住在纽约，但我们还时常见上对方一面。最近一次我提及到我们曾经的“天鹅之争”，令我意外的是朱尔斯已经忘却了50年前发生在我们客厅的那次激烈的争辩。然而我相信，那次经历一定存在在他潜意识的某个地方。 Jules told me he demands that all cellists auditioning for the Boston Symphony play The Swan. He looks for musicality, tone production, intonation, bow control, and artistry in a prospective cellist. Jules said, “Once I hear a cellist play The Swan, I know absolutely everything I need to know.” 朱尔斯告诉我他要求所有来波士顿交响乐团参加选拔的大提琴家演奏《天鹅》，他在这过程中考核这些前途无量的大提琴家们的音乐性、对音色、音调、弓的控制以及他们的艺术性，朱尔斯说“只要我听到他们拉《天鹅》，我就对我所应该知道的一切了然于胸了”。 帕尔曼演绎圣·桑《天鹅》 译后记 看到这篇文章是讲述与《天鹅》有关的故事时，我心里油然升起了一股熟悉的暖意。圣-桑的天鹅在国内的听众中有很高的呼声，无疑《天鹅》满足了热爱线性音乐美的中国人对古典音乐的所有幻想，不管是上音乐赏析课或是曲式分析课，甚至就连我在本科时跟学民乐的同学坐在一起讨论中西音乐之别时这首曲子也经常会被提及，可见圣-桑的《天鹅》是一只多么惹人怜爱的天鹅了。 曲子结构确是如阿诺德·斯坦哈特所说的“简单得甚至幼稚”，但就在这简单的单三部结构中我们却能真切地看到优雅的天鹅帝王般地巡游在水面，孤独、灵动又令人心生向往。深刻的东西不一定要多复杂，往往单纯才是我们众里寻他后的最终归宿。我愿意做一只单纯的天鹅，你呢？ |
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