“巴赫的音乐直指人心。”丨思想家萨义德论巴赫
Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician
《巴赫：博学的音乐家》书评（一）
By Edward Said
萨义德，美籍巴勒斯坦人，早年在耶路撒冷和开罗接受教育，1954 年赴美，先后在普林斯顿大学和哈佛大学攻读，终获博士学位。他风流倜傥，通晓九种语言，虽接受西方精英教育，却念念不忘东方文明，他是巴勒斯坦解放组织的盟友。海湾战争的时候， 他亲自上街示威游行，反对美国入侵伊拉克，激烈抨击殖民主义。1978 年他推出《东方主义》，顿时大爆冷门，树立了七十年代末美国左倾文化批评的典范。出版音乐文集《音乐的极境》。
The core repertory of Western classical music is dominated by a small number of composers, mostly German and Austrian, mostly of the 18th and 19th centuries. In their work, perfection – of form, melody, harmony and rhythm – is common; in fact it occurs in their music with a frequency unimaginable in painting (except perhaps for Raphael) or literature.
西方古典音乐中的核心曲目主要是由为数不多的作曲家写就的，这些作曲家多数是德国或奥地利人，多数生活在十八和十九世纪。在他们的作品中，无论曲式、旋律、和声还是节奏，其完美程度可谓司空见惯。这种现象在绘画（大概拉斐尔除外）和文学上简直无法想象。即便如此，在这样璀璨的群星中约翰·塞巴斯汀·巴赫（1685-1750）仍然独领风骚，高高站在作曲艺术的巅峰。
Yet even in such extraordinary company Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) stands in solitary eminence, at the very pinnacle of the art. A large number of his works are still quite regularly performed and, since last year marked the 250th anniversary of his death, he is guaranteed to feature on every hall and church programme. There is also a vast outpouring of Bach recordings, which, until DGG curtailed the series, included John Eliot Gardiner’s amazing cantata performances.
巴赫的许多作品仍被广为演奏，特别是去年（2000年）是他去世250周年，每座音乐厅每座教堂都以他的作品为主打。巴赫的唱片也大量涌现，在德意志唱片公司（DGG）叫停之前，还包括约翰·艾略特·加德纳（John Eliot Gardiner）令人惊叹的康塔塔（cantata）演出。整整一年，整个欧洲和北美每周都有这样的演出，为了纪念巴赫本人生前在教堂的周日演出，其时他在教堂担任唱诗班指挥和管风琴手。
I. Alegro Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra - Bach: Brandenburg Concertos
One of these took place every week for a year all over Europe and North America – the intention was to match the composer’s own Sunday series for the churches he served as choirmaster and organist. Yet even this enormous quantity of work is not the totality of Bach’s output. According to Christoph Wolff, his most recent and thorough biographer, at least half of Bach’s church oeuvre has been lost, along with many instrumental and ensemble pieces. The sheer density and quality of what remains is all the more staggering.
然而，即便数量庞大，这些作品仍然不是巴赫笔下的全部。据巴赫最近也是最为详细的传记撰写者克里斯多夫·沃尔夫（Christoph Wolff）所说，巴赫所作的教堂音乐至少有一半都遗失了，同样命运的还有许多器乐作品和合奏作品。仅仅是流传下来的巴赫作品，其数量与质量已足够惊人。
Like Handel, his contemporary, and Mozart, born nine years after his death, Bach had an aural as well as dextral facility that made people gasp. At the keyboard, whether performing a work of his own, sight-reading or improvising, Bach also had a gift for polyphony unequalled before or since. With the striking exception of Berlioz, who refused to allow Bach to impress him, every major composer has been stunned by his fertility, by the ingenious combining, shaping and weaving of voices that constituted his style and which he brought to a refinement far exceeding that of earlier German polyphonists such as Pachelbel and Buxtehude, from whom he had learned the basic elements.
与他的同龄人亨德尔（Handel）和他逝后九年出生的莫扎特（Mozart）一样，巴赫拥有令人叹为观止的听觉和手指机能。在键盘上，无论是演奏自己的作品，还是视奏或即兴，巴赫在复调音乐上的天赋可以说是前无古人后无来者。除了柏辽兹（Berlioz）很奇怪地拒绝巴赫的影响外，其他每位大作曲家都震惊于他的多产，震惊于他巧妙组合、塑造和编织声音的作曲风格。巴赫早先从帕赫贝尔（Pachelbel）和布克斯泰胡德（Buxtehude）那里学到复调音乐的基本要素，但他把这种风格发扬光大，远胜这些在他之前的德国复调作曲家们。
II. Andante (第二乐章 行板) Australian Chamber Orchestra/Richard Tognetti - Bach - Beethoven - Brahms
No composer after Bach was so thoroughly the 'learned’ musician that Wolff describes. The works he composed (and very often performed) were so beautifully and so intelligently worked out and elaborated that they exhausted the resources of tonal sound. In Bach’s counterpoint, the listener is aware of a remarkable complexity but never a laborious or academic one. Its authority is absolute. For both listener and performer, the result is an aesthetic pleasure based equally on immediate accessibility and the greatest technical prowess.
巴赫之后的作曲家再没有人像沃尔夫描述得这样绝对“博学”。他创作的（也常常演奏的）作品优美动听，灵气逼人，构思精巧，把音声资源运用到了极致。听者从巴赫的对位中听得出非同一般的繁复，却听不出费力和拘泥，他作品的权威性是毋庸置疑的。无论是聆听者还是演奏者，都能从其作品感受到美的愉悦，这种愉悦来自瞬间的直指人心，同样也来自最强大的技术实力。
Because it is a highly specialised and even esoteric art, classical music must be studied in a highly organised and structured manner. For the non-musician, to attempt more than just humming or coaxing the single line of a tune out of an instrument is practically impossible. The science of sound-production, the rigours of the well-tempered harmonic system, the formalities of composition, the physical discipline of learning how to play and then perform on an instrument (or to sing an aria or lied) – all these require years of practice and study, especially in the perfecting of mind-ear-hand (or voice) co-ordination and the ability to deploy it unerringly, without hesitation, that lies at the heart of virtuoso performing.
古典音乐是一门高度专业甚至深奥难及的艺术，因此对它的研究必须是高度组织化和结构化的。对非音乐家来说，哼哼曲子或者哄着乐器能奏出一两行曲调基本上已是极限。而发声的科学、严谨平衡的和声体系，作曲的形式，学习如何演奏乐器并表演（或者学习歌唱咏叹调或抒情歌曲）所需要的身体训练——所有这些都需要年复一年的操练和学习，特别是脑耳手（或口）的精准协调以及演奏大师必须具备的、对这种协调不假思索而又准确无误的运用能力。
III. Allegro assai (第三乐章 很快的快板) Australian Chamber Orchestra/Richard Tognetti - Bach - Beethoven - Brahms
Many pretenders to musical proficiency have seen their ambitions for a successful career collapse after discovering that musicality or a love of music isn’t enough, that what one really needs is an inborn capacity to translate what is seen on a page of music or heard in the ear directly into the muscles of hand or throat. All great musicians were and are endowed with this gift, which involves a dexterity, as well as perfect memory and pitch, that one either has or doesn’t have.
很多貌似精通音乐的人看到自己想成为音乐家的野心灰飞烟灭，因为他们发现仅凭拥有乐感或者对音乐的热爱是不够的，你真正需要的是能够把看到或听到的音乐通过双手或喉咙的肌肉表现出来的天分。所有的大音乐家都有这样的天分，包括灵巧的手指、完美的记忆和音准，这些都是一个人生而有之或者先天缺失的。
Age allows one to develop a set of skills, but not to acquire the gift. Musical lore is filled with examples: Mozart’s ability to hear a piece once and then write it all down perfectly; Beethoven’s seemingly unending power to improvise pieces at the keyboard that many witnesses swear were finer than the ones he wrote down; or – one of my favourites
年岁渐长可以使人提高技巧，但不能使人获得天分。音乐界的传说中这样的例子比比皆是：莫扎特听过一曲即可把它完美地谱写出来；贝多芬在键盘上的即兴创作能力永不枯竭，多位目击者都咬定他即兴而作的作品比他写下来的还要精美；还有，这也是我最喜欢故事之一：
I. Vivace (第一乐章 活泼的) Arthur Grumiaux/Herman Krebbers/Les Solistes Romands/Arpad Gerecz - Bach: Violin Concertos - Double Concertos
The young Saint-Saëns visiting Wagner and Liszt at Bayreuth, sitting at the piano and giving a perfect rendition of Siegfried, the unfinished full orchestral score of which Wagner had left at the keyboard as he chatted with his father-in-law. Both Wagner and Liszt were staggered by Saint-Saëns’s ability first to decipher a hugely complicated and totally unfamiliar text in one medium and then somehow to reduce it all instantaneously to ten fluent fingers and a keyboard in another.
年轻的圣桑（Saint-Saëns）去拜罗伊特（Bayreuth）拜访瓦格纳（Wagner）和李斯特（Liszt），之前瓦格纳与其岳父聊天时把尚未写完的管弦乐总谱《齐格弗里德》（Siegfried）留在琴上，圣桑坐在琴前完美地将其演奏了一遍。瓦格纳和李斯特对圣桑的才能大为惊叹，因为他不仅能够解读十分繁复又完全陌生的某一形式的作品，而且能够立刻把它用另一种形式通过流畅的十指和键盘表现出来。
In the past hundred years, virtuoso performers who are also major composers, figures like Britten and Rachmaninov, have become increasingly rare. There is no one like that today, unless one considers extraordinary conductors – Pierre Boulez, for example, who is also a great composer – to be virtuoso performers akin to pianists and organists. Today’s concerts are extreme events, something quite apart from everyday life.
在过去的几百年间，像布列顿（Britten）和拉赫玛尼诺夫（Rachmaninov）这样既是演奏大师又是大作曲家的人物越来越少。到今天已经没有这样的人物了，除非我们把杰出的指挥家也算作钢琴家或管风琴家，比如指挥家皮埃尔·布列兹（Pierre Boulez），他也是位伟大的作曲家。如今的音乐会不是寻常事件，与日常生活完全两码事。
II. Adagio (第二乐章 柔板) Arthur Grumiaux/Les Solistes Romands/Arpad Gerecz - Bach: Violin Concertos - Double Concertos
Pollini or Barenboim or Yo-Yo Ma are individuals with unusual musical talent who perform a programme of music in a way that is at the same time risky and challenging for them and enjoyable and exciting for listeners: they don’t need to have the ability to do anything other than play extremely well. The musicians who teach or compose in addition to virtuoso playing are much more the exception than the layman thinks.
波利尼（Pollini）、巴伦博伊姆（Barenboim）、马友友（Yo-Yo Ma）都是音乐天赋异禀的人物，他们演奏起音乐来堪称冒险和对自己的挑战，但却令听众愉悦和兴奋：他们只要演奏得极好就行，不需要把别的事也做得这么极致。但除了高水平演奏之外还要教授音乐或作曲的音乐家们，可比外行想象中的要难得的多。精通音乐这一点本身就是一种天赋，我相信这与音乐是一门深奥的艺术脱不开干系。
Musical proficiency is a talent in and of itself, and that, I believe, is related to music’s nature as an esoteric art. Unlike the words of a great poem, which have all sorts of specific meanings and possibilities beyond those made use of by the poet, the notes in a piece of music in the end either refer back to themselves or to other music, and are uncorrupted by references or connotations that stand outside the actual sound.
伟大诗篇中的文字，除了诗人本人的用意，会有各种特定的意思，各种不同的解释；与之不同的是，音乐中的音符最终要么指向本身，要么指向其他音乐，并不会因为独立于实际声响之外的所指或含义而改变。
Programme music proves rather than contradicts this, since nine times out of ten it is the music which, by means of a few vaguely mimetic sounds (fifths played by 'hunting’ horns, growls in the double basses meant to sound like a dragon, a march in a minor key that stands for an army’s defeat etc), confirms the programme rather than the other way round.
标题音乐便证明了这一点，因为十有八九是音乐通过一些近似模仿性的声音（比如“猎”号奏出的五级音，低音提琴低吼出像龙一般的声音，进行曲小调代表部队溃败等）去印证标题而非标题去印证音乐。（未完待续……）