18th-century cello music
十八世纪的大提琴乐
Curves and waves
巴赫~无伴奏大提琴组曲~卡萨尔斯
Jan 7th 2010
From The Economist print edition
译者：eastx （经济学人中文论坛）
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IN 1890 a 13-year-old Spanish musical prodigy, Pablo Casals, was rummaging through a second-hand sheet-music store in Barcelona. He stumbled across a tattered copy of six cello suites by Johann Sebastian Bach. These pieces, written in the 1720s, had long been obscure. But for the young Pablo, their melodic beauty was audible. He spent the next 12 years practising them every day before he would perform them in public. Casals’s superb rendition ensured the cello suites attracted a mass following, and they became the hallmark of the virtuoso cellist’s fabulous career.
1890年，巴塞罗那，一家旧乐谱店，一个13岁的小孩，西班牙的音乐神童，帕勃罗·卡萨尔斯——正在翻寻旧乐谱。他偶然撞到一个破烂不堪的印本，是巴赫于1720年创作的六首大提琴组曲，长期以来少有人知晓，但年轻的帕勃罗却能感觉出其美丽的旋律。在接下来的12年间，他每天练习这些曲子；然后就是12年后面对公众的演奏。卡萨尔斯的卓越演绎为这套大提琴组曲俘获了一大批的追随者，这组曲子也成了这位大提琴大师职业辉煌点的标志。
They certainly enthralled Eric Siblin, a former pop-music journalist. “The Cello Suites”, his first book, vividly chronicles his international search for the original, and unfound, Bach score. The story is interspersed with digressions on the lives of Bach and Casals, which deftly reveal how contemporary politics shaped their music, and buffeted their careers. For Bach, for instance, “there is a straight line connecting Prussian militarism with [his] six suites.”
这组曲子当然也让埃里克·西卜林（曾作过流行音乐记者）着迷。他的第一本书——《无伴奏大提琴组曲》——就生动地记录了他在世界范围内寻找巴赫乐谱原本的过程（结果是没有找到），还不时地偏离一下叙述主线，穿插一些巴赫和卡萨尔斯的生平轶事。这些故事巧妙地揭示出两人的音乐和事业怎样受到所处政治时局的影响和冲击。对于巴赫来说，“他的六首大提琴组曲和普鲁士的黩武精神有着很直接的联系。”
Mr Siblin’s book is well researched, and filled with enough anecdotes to engage even the classical-music aficionado. One of the suites, for example, exhibits the musical refrain B-flat, A, C, B, which in German usage spells Bach. Bach’s music also displays a fetish for Kabbalistic numbering. But the book is best distinguished by its writing. To vivify music in words is not easy. But Mr Siblin, who memorably describes one Bach passage as a “spine-shivering, jewel-encrusted melody on a swath of organ and strings”, rises to the task.
西卜林这本书内容翔实、充满轶事掌故，甚至对古典音乐骨灰级乐迷都能有十足的吸引力。比如组曲中其中一个曲子有一个“降B，A，C，B”的反复，而这四个字母排列恰巧是“巴赫”的德语拼法。巴赫的音乐同样显示了他对卡巴拉编号法的迷恋。但是本书最突出的地方却是它的写作。用文字将音乐描述得生动立体不是件容易事，但西卜林却做到了，比如他将巴赫的某个音乐段落描述成“萦绕在长条管风琴管和琴弦周围的被珍珠外壳包裹着的令人后背发抖的旋律”。
The dearth of data on Bach makes an accurate character portrayal difficult. Yet the book manages to chip away at the stuffy image of Bach famously fanned by a Saxon court painter, Elias Hausmann. Instead, we see Bach the irascible youth, the ambitious careerist, the grieving husband, and the father (of 20 children, only ten of whom survived infancy) keen to send his sons to university.
要精准刻画巴赫的性格很难，因为其生平资料甚少。但是本书却一点点地驱散了由撒克逊宫廷画师埃利亚斯·豪斯曼所作的那副著名的肖像画中那个固有刻板的巴赫形象，取而代之的是读者眼前的一个愤怒青年，一个对于未来事业满怀雄心的梦想家，一个郁闷的丈夫，一个渴望把他的孩子（生了20个孩子，只有10个最后活了下来）送进大学的父亲。
A fuller picture of Casals emerges. His musicality was complemented by an unwavering love for his native Catalonia, whose customs and people Spain’s fascist forces began to destroy in the civil war. Casals’s outspoken opposition to General Franco’s government kept him exiled in France. He refused requests to play the cello suites in the many countries that recognised the regime. Spain’s government swore to amputate his arms if he returned.
书中关于卡萨尔斯的刻画则要更完整丰满。除了他的音乐天才，还写了他对故土加泰罗尼亚和那里的风俗那里的人的始终如一的爱，而这些人和事在内战中就开始遭到西班牙法西斯军队的破坏。卡萨尔斯对佛朗哥政府公然的对抗使他流亡到法国。他拒绝了许多国家要他演奏大提琴组曲的请求，因为它们都承认佛朗哥政权。西班牙政府发话说，如果他敢回国，就锯掉他的手臂。
Casals’s mix of genius and musical martyrdom made him a geriatric superstar. In 1958 he played at the United Nations in New York (assuring himself that it was not American territory) in a concert that reached more listeners than any other to date. In 1961 President Kennedy invited him to the White House. Casals’s lifelong political torment was ultimately tempered by domestic bliss. Aged 80, he married a former student, 20-year-old Marta Montanez, and spent his final years with her in her native Puerto Rico.
卡萨尔斯兼具乐才和乐德，这种结合使他在年老时成了一个超级巨星。1958年，他在纽约联合国驻地（确定不是美国地盘才来）的一场音乐会上进行演奏，覆盖听众数比迄今为止任何一次音乐会都多。1961年，肯尼迪总统邀请他到白宫作客。卡萨尔斯长达一生的政治磨难在最后得到了温馨的家庭生活的补偿。他在80岁时迎娶了以前的一个学生——20岁的马尔塔·蒙塔涅兹，并且和她一起在她的家乡波多黎各度过了最后的时光。
Mr Siblin never found the original script. It remains unclear whether Bach even meant the suites for the cello. The sixth suite curiously calls for an instrument with five strings, whereas the cello has only four. One thing is sure. Read “The Cello Suites”—preferably with their melodious hum in the background—and you will never look at a cello in quite the same way again.
西卜林根本没有找到巴赫的原本。甚至巴赫这套组曲是否是专为大提琴而作都依然是个疑问——这六首曲子奇怪地要求用一种五弦乐器来演奏，而大提琴只有四弦。但是有一件事却是很明确的。读这本《无伴奏大提琴组曲》——最好还在一旁伴有它那幽幽的旋律——之后，你再看大提琴时就不再是你以前眼中的大提琴了。
The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece. By Eric Siblin. Atlantic; 336 pages; $24. Harvill Secker; ￡14.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk
