这些伟大作品，都创作于作曲家临终前

作曲家人生的最后阶段

From Classic FM

Elgar, Schubert, Beethoven and more: they saved their greatest works for last.The vocation of ‘composer’ is an unusual one - it’s one of the only career choices where being on your deathbed might actually benefit your work. One hallmark of the greatest composers of all time was their ability to turn the most profound human experience into beautiful music. No matter how wretched their lives became, every hardship was grist for the mill.

埃尔加，舒伯特，贝多芬还有其他的作曲家：他们在人生的最后阶段都创作出了最好的音乐作品。“作曲家”的职业非常与众不同常——即使在临终时的病床上创作的音乐，也可能成为他职业生涯中的辉煌之作。历史上最伟大的作曲家的标志之一是，他们能够把人类最深刻的体验转化为美妙的音乐。无论他们的生活是多么悲惨，每一次艰难困苦对他们来说都是一次磨砺。

Haydn  The Seasons

海顿清唱剧《四季》

Haydn was well known for being a tirelessly cheerful man, and it’s commonly thought that he poured all this vitality into his epic oratorio ‘The Creation’, and never quite recovered.This isn’t completely true; people often overlook the final oratorio he wrote,‘The Seasons’, which is another work full of vibrant colours and joyful description.

众所周知，海顿是个精力充沛不知疲倦的人，人们通常认为他把所有的精力都倾注到他史诗性的清唱剧《创世纪》中，且后来始终没有恢复到他最佳的创作状态中。事实并非如此，人们往往忽略他最后的清唱剧作品《四季》，这是另一部充满生机愉悦、色彩缤纷的作品。

Beethoven - Op. 130 String Quartet

贝多芬《弦乐四重奏》（Op.130）

As his body failed him, Beethoven’s music reached for ever further extremes; from the very complex to the very simple, exploring deep spirituality and roaring comedy, from the sublime to the frankly ridiculous. Beethoven’s last works became more and more avant-garde, and the culmination of this was his notorious Grosse fugue, (Great Fugue), the original finale of the Op. 130 String Quartet, played here by the Busch String Quartet:

当贝多芬的身体每况愈下时，他的音乐更加极端化：由繁入简，探索人性深层的灵性和狂喜，从崇高到近乎荒谬的坦率。贝多芬生命最后时期的音乐也变得越来越具有前瞻性（译者注：也更不能为当时听众接受），其中最声名狼藉的是他的《大赋格曲》，也就是《弦乐四重奏》（Op.130）原作的终曲。

Due to his hearing loss, Beethoven didn’t attend its premiere, but sat in an ale house waiting for news. When his friends brought the news that the piece had not been well received, Beethoven launched into an angry tirade against the sensibilities of the audience, calling them ‘cattle!’ and ‘asses!’ It was only later in the 20th century that players and audiences were really ready to contend with it.

由于听力障碍，贝多芬没有出席首演音乐会，而是坐在一家啤酒屋等待消息。当他的朋友们带来消息说这首曲子并不受欢迎时，贝多芬就对观众发起了愤怒的长篇大论，称他们是“牛”和“蠢驴！”。直到20世纪后期，演奏者和观众才做好接受这首曲子的准备。

Pergolesi  Stabat Mater

佩尔戈莱西《圣母悼歌》

Pergolesi died from what was probably tuberculosis at the age of just 26, shortly after completing one of his most famous works, his Stabat Mater for soprano and alto soloists. He achieved little recognition during his lifetime, yet the work remains one of the most commonly performed settings of the text in existence.

佩尔戈莱西在完成了人生最著名的作品之一《圣母悼歌》后不久，便在26岁时死于肺结核，这首曲子为女高音和女中音而创作。在佩尔戈莱西的一生中，他几乎没有获得过认可，然而这首曲子现今仍是最常见演奏的作品之一。

Schubert Winterreise

舒伯特《冬之旅》

From his mid-twenties, Schubert was well aware that his time on this earth was limited. His body was wracked by the second stage of Syphilis, and as the disease progressed over his final four years of life, he wrote furiously - never knowing which day would be his last.The music of his final year stand alone in terms of quality, and has a tremendous quality of triumph in the face of adversity.The second book of his song cycle Winterreise, (finished shortly before his death and published posthumously), contains the most desolate images, particularly of the bare-footed organ-grinder with a fixed grimace in Die Leiermann, (The Hurdy-Gurdy Man):

从他二十多岁开始，舒伯特就很清楚自己在这个世界上的时间是有限的。他的身体被梅毒二期的病痛折磨着，当疾病在他生命的最后四年中不断加重时，舒伯特悲愤地写道，永远不知道哪一天会是他生命的最后一天。最后一年舒伯特的音乐创作在品质独树一帜，体现出面对逆境时的伟大胜利。他的第二部艺术歌曲集《冬之旅》（在他死前不久完成，死后出版）蕴含了生命中最荒凉的景象，特别是《街头艺人》一曲中所描绘的那位在赤着脚面无表情地演奏的手风琴艺人。

Bartok Third Piano Concerto

巴托克《第三钢琴协奏曲》

Bela Bartok was fading fast from Leukaemia whilst writing the end of his third piano concerto. He wrote the piece for his wife Ditta, who was also a concert pianist, and was orchestrating the last 17 bars when the ambulance arrived.When he arrived at the hospital he said to his doctor that ‘he was only sorry to be going with his luggage full’. His wife could never bear to play it.

贝拉·巴托克在创作他《第三钢琴协奏曲》的结尾时，白血病正使他濒临死亡。巴托克为妻子迪塔创作了这首曲子，她妻子同时还是音乐会钢琴演奏家。救护车到达时，他正在给最后17小节编曲。当巴托克到达医院时，他对他医生说：“我只为自己行装满满地走向死亡而感到抱歉。”他的妻子始终不忍心演奏这首为她而作的曲子。（译者注：这实际是巴托克的最后一首作品，他逝世前还剩下几小节未完成，是他的朋友赛利帮助他补全的。）

Richard Strauss Last Four Songs

理查·施特劳斯的《最后四首歌》

Strauss did not write his four last songs with the intention of them being his swan songs, nor did he necessarily intend them to be published as a set. Nevertheless; three of the four are about death, though rather than an anguished and terrifying glimpse of mortality, Strauss presents us with a vision which is full of acceptance and completion.

施特劳斯写他的最后四首歌并不是想把它们作为他的绝唱，也不一定要把它们作为一套作品出版。然而，这四首中的三首曲目都是描写死亡的，虽然音乐中死亡并非痛苦而可怕的，只是他对域死亡的一瞥，但在其中施特劳斯展现出面对死亡时他泰然坦荡的心态。

For several of the greatest composers in history, their final works developed a different perspective, as they stared into the void and wrote what they saw into their music. In this kind of job, if you’ve got to die sometime, you might as well get a couple of good pieces out of it!

对于历史上几个最伟大的作曲家来说，他们的临终作品延展出了不同的视角，他们凝视虚空，将他们所看到的东西，谱写在了他们的音乐中。在这些伟大的音乐创作事业中，如果你注定逝去，你将从中收获一些美好。