悠游度過一天的24小時：第九章對藝術(shù)的興趣

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2020年02月10日

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CHAPTER IX Interest In The Arts

第九章對藝術(shù)的興趣

Many people pursue a regular and uninterrupted course of idleness in the evenings because they think that there is no alternative to idleness but the study of literature; and they do not happen to have a taste for literature. This is a great mistake.

很多人晚間總想無所事事，一直閑著，因為他們覺得打發(fā)時間的唯一途徑就是讀文學作品，可他們對文學又提不起興趣。這是一個嚴重的錯誤。

Of course it is impossible, or at any rate very difficult, properly to study anything whatever without the aid of printed books. But if you desire to understand the deeper depths of bridge or of boat-sailing you would not be deterred by your lack of interest in literature from reading the best books on bridge or boat-sailing. We must, therefore, distinguish between literature, and books treating of subjects not literary. I shall come to literature in due course.

沒有紙質(zhì)書籍，想要較好地學習任何東西當然不可能或是很艱難。但若你渴望了解打橋牌或操作帆船的高深技巧，你就不會因為對文學缺乏興趣而對橋牌或帆船方面最好的書籍畏而遠之了。因此我們必須區(qū)分文學書籍和非文學書籍。等該談文學時我自然會談及文學。

Let me now remark to those who have never read Meredith1, and who are capable of being unmoved by a discussion as to whether Mr. Stephen Phillips2 is or is not a true poet, that they are perfectly within their rights. It is not a crime not to love literature. It is not a sign of imbecility. The mandarins of literature will order out to instant execution the unfortunate individual who does not comprehend, say, the inf luence of Wordsworth3 on Tennyson4. But that is only their impudence. Where would they be, I wonder, if requested to explain the influences that went to make Tschaikowsky's "Pathetic Symphony"?

現(xiàn)在，對那些從未讀過梅瑞狄斯的作品、對斯蒂芬.菲利普是否真正算詩人的討論無動于衷的人，我想說他們完全有權(quán)利這樣做。不喜愛文學并不是罪惡，也不是愚笨的表現(xiàn)。文學界的達官貴人們認為，對那些連華茲華斯對丁尼生有何影響等類事情都不知曉的可悲的人，應(yīng)該立即執(zhí)行死刑。然而這不過是那些官令的輕率之舉。我尋思如果要這些官令解釋柴可夫斯基創(chuàng)作《悲愴交響曲》時所受的啟示，他們會怎樣？

There are enormous fields of knowledge quite outside literature which will yield magnificent results to cultivators. For example (since I have just mentioned the most popular piece of high-class music in England today), I am reminded that the Promenade Concerts5 begin in August. You go to them. You smoke your cigar or cigarette (and I regret to say that you strike your matches during the soft bars of the "Lohengrin" overture), and you enjoy the music. But you say you cannot play the piano or the fiddle, or even the banjo; that you know nothing of music.

文學之外，還有廣闊的知識領(lǐng)域可以給人以極大的教化。比如（我剛剛提到了當今英國最流行的高級音樂），我想起每逢八月開始的逍遙音樂會。你參加音樂會，一邊抽著雪茄或香煙（我不得不遺憾地告訴你，當《羅恩格林》序曲的優(yōu)美旋律響起時，你卻劃了火柴），一邊陶醉在音樂中?？墒悄阏f你不會彈鋼琴，不會拉小提琴，甚至連班卓琴也不會；你認為自己對音樂一竅不通。

What does that matter? That you have a genuine taste for music is proved by the fact that, in order to fill his hall with you and your peers, the conductor is obliged to provide programmes from which bad music is almost entirely excluded (a change from the old Covent Garden6 days!).

那有什么關(guān)系呢？為了使你和同伴們坐滿音樂廳，樂隊指揮挑選了精彩的曲目，次劣音樂完全沒有立足之地（可不同于以前柯文特花園的日子！），這一事實足以證明你對音樂真正有品位。

Now surely your inability to perform "The Maiden's Prayer" on a piano need not prevent you from making yourself familiar with the construction of the orchestra to which you listen a couple of nights a week during a couple of months! As things are, you probably think of the orchestra as a heterogeneous mass of instruments producing a confused agreeable mass of sound. You do not listen for details because you have never trained your ears to listen to details.

因此現(xiàn)在很肯定的是，即便你不會用鋼琴演奏《少女的祈禱》，也毫不妨礙你熟悉管弦樂隊的結(jié)構(gòu)，因為幾個月來你每周花好幾晚聽樂隊演奏。事實是，你很可能認為管弦樂隊就是集中五花八門的樂器，奏出一系列混亂而又悅耳的聲音。你沒有注意聽細節(jié)，因為你的耳朵還沒受過相關(guān)訓(xùn)練。

If you were asked to name the instruments which play the great theme at the beginning of the C minor symphony you could not name them for your life's sake. Yet you admire the C minor symphony. It has thrilled you. It will thrill you again. You have even talked about it, in an expansive mood, to that lady—you know whom I mean. And all you can positively state about the C minor symphony is that Beethoven composed it and that it is a " jolly fine thing."

如果要你說出C小調(diào)交響曲響起時演奏主旋律的樂器名稱，可能你無論如何也說不出來。但你還是很欣賞這首曲子，它讓你心潮澎湃，以后還會讓你感到震撼。興致高的時候，你還同那位女士談過這首曲子——你知道我指的是誰。對于這首曲子，你能談?wù)摰囊矁H限于那是貝多芬的作品，說它是“讓人身心愉悅的好曲子”。

Now, if you have read, say, Mr. Krehbiel's7 How to Listen to Music (which can be got at any bookseller's for less than the price of a stall at the Alhambra, and which contains photographs of all the orchestral instruments and plans of the arrangement of orchestras) you would next go to a promenade concert with an astonishing intensification of interest in it. Instead of a confused mass, the orchestra would appear to you as what it is—a marvellously balanced organism whose various groups of members each have a different and an indispensable function. You would spy out the instruments, and listen for their respective sounds. You would know the gulf that separates a French horn from an English horn, and you would perceive why a player of the hautboy gets higher wages than a fiddler, though the fiddle is the more difficult instrument. You would live at a promenade concert, whereas previously you had merely existed there in a state of beatific coma, like a baby gazing at a bright object.

但如果你讀過，比如克雷比爾所著的《怎樣聽音樂》（幾乎任何書店都可以買到，價格比阿罕布拉劇場的前排票價還低，還有管弦樂團所有樂器的圖片以及樂隊的安排方案）之后，下次去參加逍遙音樂會，你的興味就會出奇濃厚了。你再也不會覺得管弦樂隊是一堆繁雜樂器的總和，而會領(lǐng)略到管弦樂隊真正的風采——是美妙和諧的一體，各成員各司其職，不可或缺。你能辨別各種樂器，聽出各自的音色。你能領(lǐng)會法國號與英國管之間的巨大差異，也能明白為什么演奏高音雙簧簫的人比小提琴手領(lǐng)到的薪水更多，盡管拉小提琴難度大些。你將切身體會音樂會的魅力，而以前你在那兒不過是像嬰兒盯著一個閃亮的東西一般，沉浸在幸福的恍惚之中。

The foundations of a genuine, systematic knowledge of music might be laid. You might specialise your inquiries either on a particular form of music (such as the symphony), or on the works of a particular composer. At the end of a year of forty-eight weeks of three brief evenings each, combined with a study of programmes and attendances at concerts chosen out of your increasing knowledge, you would really know something about music, even though you were as far off as ever from jangling "The Maiden's Prayer" on the piano.

真正的、系統(tǒng)的音樂知識基礎(chǔ)就這樣奠定了。你可以深入了解某種形式的音樂（如交響樂），或是某位作曲家的作品。一年48個星期的時間里，每周三個晚上略抽一點時間去了解音樂，加之對節(jié)目的研究，隨著相關(guān)知識的增長，選擇參加一些音樂會，你就會真正懂得一些音樂的相關(guān)知識，雖然你還是跟從前一樣，甚至不會用鋼琴丁零當啷地敲出《少女的祈禱》。

But I hate music! you say. My dear sir, I respect you.

“但我討厭音樂！”你說。我親愛的先生，我尊重你的意見。

What applies to music applies to the other arts. I might mention Mr. Clermont Witt's8 How to Look at Pictures, or Mr. Russell Sturgis's9 How to Judge Architecture, as beginnings (merely beginnings) of systematic vitalising knowledge in other arts, the materials for whose study abound in London.

有關(guān)音樂的做法也適用于其他藝術(shù)形式。作為系統(tǒng)了解其他藝術(shù)的開始（僅僅是開始），或許我可以提及克萊蒙特.威特的《如何欣賞畫作》、拉塞爾.斯特吉斯的《如何評價建筑》，這類書籍在倫敦可謂汗牛充棟。

I hate all the arts! you say. My dear sir, I respect you more and more.

“所有藝術(shù)我都討厭！”你說。親愛的先生，我對您越發(fā)尊重了。

I will deal with your case next, before coming to literature.

接下來我將分析你的情況，然后再談文學。

(1)梅瑞狄斯（1828—1909)，英國維多利亞時代小說家、詩人。

(2)斯蒂芬?菲利普（1864—1915），英國著名詩人、劇作家。

(3)華茲華斯（1770—1850），英國浪漫主義詩人。

(4)丁尼生（1809—1892），英國19世紀中葉的著名詩人。

(5)逍遙音樂會，又稱BBC逍遙音樂會（TheBBCProms），每年夏季定期在位于英國倫敦南肯辛頓的爾伯特音樂廳舉行，為期八周。

(6)柯文特花園，此處為“柯文特花園皇家歌劇院”（CoventGardenRoyalOperaHouse）的簡略說法，此劇院1732年建于英國倫敦的柯文特花園，1856年遭火災(zāi)，1858年重建。

(7)克雷比爾（1854—1923)，美國音樂評論家、音樂學家。