Are today’s concert pianists boring?

当今的钢琴家是否日趋乏味？

By Martin Kettle

An article by Martin Kettle, which originally appeared in The Guardian in 2002 and has been doing the rounds of the social networks recently, claims that today’s concert pianists as “so boring”. He waxes nostalgic about the great pianists of yesteryear (Cortot, Horowitz, Rubenstein, Schnabel, Kempf, Serkin, Richter et al), highlighting wondrous sound, insightful and profound interpretations .Arrau’s Beethoven always had a sacramental feel.

马丁·凯特的一篇文章，原刊于2002年《卫报》，最近一直在社交网络上进行宣传。文章声称当今的音乐会钢琴家“太过乏味”。他对过去的伟大钢琴家（科尔托、霍洛维茨、鲁宾斯坦、施纳贝尔、肯普夫、塞尔金、里赫特等）充满了怀旧之情，强调了他们奇妙的音色、深刻的诠释。阿劳演奏的贝多芬总是有一种神圣的感觉。

Serkin’s Beethoven and Schubert recitals, of which I heard several, were overwhelmingly creative experiences in ways that one now never hears”), a seeming “golden age” of pianism that has passed, never to be rekindled; but the author singularly fails to explain exactly why he feels today’s pianists are boring.

塞尔金演奏贝多芬和舒伯特的独奏会我听过好几次，那是一种令人无法抵抗的创造性体验，是以一种现在人从未听说过的方式，似乎钢琴演奏的“黄金时代”已经过去，永远不会重新振作；但作者却无法确切地解释他为什么会觉得当今的钢琴家很乏味。

Every age has its “greats” who are remembered, sometimes through rose-tinted spectacles, for their uniqueness, their special qualities. I believe that there are many pianists alive and working today who will also be remembered as “greats” in years to come, and I feel that the international piano scene today is very much alive, rich, varied and exciting. It is also highly competitive, never more so than now in our image-driven, here-today-gone-tomorrow fast-paced 21st-century world.

每个时代都有值得被记住的“经典”，人们有时通过乐观的视角来记住他们的独特性和特别的品质。我相信，今天仍有很多健在的钢琴家，他们在未来的岁月里也会被誉为“经典”。我认为当今国际钢琴界的前景充满活力，丰富多彩，令人兴奋。这同时具有高度的竞争，并且在当今这个视觉文化主导，短暂而快节奏的21世纪世界里，这种竞争日益激烈。

The life of the concert pianist is hard and can be a smothering profession. All the hours spent working, conjuring magic out of that big box of wood and wires, with only dead composers for companions, can feel like a form of captivity, the grinding, solitary hours of practise only intermittently relieved by work with colleagues, ensembles and orchestras and conductors, and of course concerts.

音乐会钢琴家的生涯是艰难的，而且这可能是令人窒息的职业。在这架由一堆木头和金属弦构成的庞然大物上，练习着像变魔术一样地创造音乐，花在这上的所有时间除了已经去世的作曲家，无人陪伴。寂寞地、日复一日地练习，这会让人有一种被囚禁的感觉。只有与音乐同行、合奏团、乐队和指挥家一起工作，当然还有音乐会时，钢琴家才会从这种孤独的隐士生活中暂时脱离一下。

 It can be a tough, restrictive and lonely life. Then there is the traveling, living out of a suitcase, sometimes a different place each night, playing an unfamiliar instrument in a foreign concert hall of uncertain acoustic, fine foreign cities viewed through the fog of travel fatigue. These days, audience expectations seem higher than ever and so the pressure to achieve is matched only by the pressure to sustain, and the uncomfortable knowledge that one’s reputation is only as good as one’s last performance.

这会是一种艰难、约束和孤独的生活。然后是旅行，仅仅凭借一个手提箱，有时每晚都会换一处安歇的地方。在一个拥有不确定音响效果的国外音乐厅里演奏陌生的乐器，透过旅行中疲惫的迷雾看见异国的美好城市风光。在这些天中，观众的期望似乎比以往任何时候都高，因此，在演出中能否达到新高度的压力和维持原状的压力相同。当想到自己演出获得的声誉只能和上次演奏相同，这同时也给人有一种不快的感觉。

To sustain a successful solo career it strikes me that one needs a thick skin, a keen focus and a hefty dose of self-belief and self-reliance. If my Meet the Artist interviews have revealed one key insight (amongst many other fascinating revelations), it is that a musician, whatever their discipline, must remain true to themselves and their own artistic vision. Yet, it can be hard not to endlessly compare oneself with others, with one’s peers, and wonder whether one should be doing it differently.

要维持、经营一个成功的独奏家事业，我认为一个人需要不在乎意见与评论的精神、敏锐的专注力和强烈的自信和自立精神。如果我的《与艺术家见面》的系列采访揭示了一种关键的理解（在许多其他迷人的启示之中），那就是，一个音乐家无论其专业是什么，都必须忠实于他们自己的内心和自己的艺术视野。然而，如果不断地将自己与他人、与同龄人比较，并想知道自己是否应选择与众不同，这就很难（成为成功的独奏家）了。

Alongside this, I feel that the wealth of high-quality recordings available today places an additional burden on performers to produce faultless performances every time. Competitions are also to blame in this regard, with performers under pressure to produce a perfect rendition in artificial surroundings.

除此之外，我觉得当今丰富的高品质唱片给表演者带来了额外的负担，这让他们追求每次都能有完美无缺的表演。在这方面，比赛也是罪魁祸首，因为这要求，即使在虚假环境下，处于压力之中的演奏者也必须有完美的演奏。

Today digital and social media mean that concert artists can offer innovative ways of traveling well-trodden paths, which can shine a new light on their work and provide audiences with different insights into the working and creative life of the musician. Valentina Lisitsa is perhaps the most famous example of this. Her YouTube films of her practise sessions and her concerts receive millions of hits. 

如今，数字和社交媒体意味着，音乐会艺术家可以提供创新的方式，在人迹般的道路上旅行，这可以为他们的作品带来新的亮点，并为观众提供不同的视角，了解音乐家的工作和创作生活。瓦伦蒂娜·利西特萨(Valentina Lisitsa)或许是最著名的例子。她在YouTube上录制的练习视频和演唱会获得了数百万点击量。

But this pianist is no nine-day wonder: I heard her at the Wigmore Hall earlier this year and was impressed to discover she is a “real pianist”, not just a YouTube sensation. Sure, the internet has contributed to her success, but fundamentally she is a committed and very genuine concert artist.

但这位钢琴家并非九天的奇迹：今年早些时候，我在威格莫尔音乐厅听过她的演奏，当我发现她是一位“真正的钢琴家”，而不仅仅是YouTube上的轰动人物时，我被深深触动。当然，互联网为她的成功做出了贡献，但从根本上说，她是一个忠诚和非常真诚的音乐会艺术家。

Many pianists working today are stepping outside the traditional concert hall to present music in more informal and/or intimate settings; others are engaged in unusual collaborations, pushing the boundaries of the instrument, commissioning new works, and inspiring the next generation of young musicians.

今天的许多钢琴家走出传统的音乐厅，在更非正式和/或更亲密的场景下呈现音乐；其他的钢琴家则从事不同寻常的合作，推动器乐演奏的极限，尝试新的作品，并激励下一代年轻的音乐家。

I will include my personal “top 5” pianists of today at the end of this post. In the meantime, I’d like to publish some of the comments I received on Facebook in response to Martin Kettle’s article:

在本帖的结尾，我将列入我个人心目中排行前五的钢琴家。同时，我想贴出一些我在Facebook上收到的评论，以回应马丁·凯特的那篇文章：

“…..to say that [today’s pianists] are boring is just ignorant of the fact that there are musicians who can give phenomenal performances which will be in the memory of the keen listener for some time. Though there are dozens more, amongst my favourite living pianists are: Claudius Tanski, Grigory Sokolov, Arcadi Volodos, Maurizio Pollini, Carlo Grante, Daniil Trifonov, the list goes on…..” (LJ)

“....若有人说今天的钢琴家很无聊，只是因为他们不知道有这样一个事实，那就是仍有些音乐家能表演出非凡的演奏，而这些演奏会在敏锐的听众记忆中持续相当一段时间。虽然这些音乐家的数量远不止如下所列，但我最喜欢的钢琴家包括（不含已去世的）：克劳迪厄斯·坦斯基、格里戈里·索科洛夫、阿卡迪·沃洛多斯、毛里齐奥·波利尼、卡洛·格兰特、丹尼尔·特里福诺夫，还有很多……”——网友一号

“Murray Perahia for his consistent excellence…. Andras Schiff for his peerless Bach, Stephen Hough for his thoughtful and sensitive playing, Gabriela Montero for her impossible improvisation skills, and Benjamin Grosvenor for his precocity….” (MH)

“（我爱）佩拉西亚因为他的一贯卓越…安德拉斯·希夫因为他无与伦比的巴赫，斯蒂芬·霍夫因为他深思熟虑和敏感的演奏，加布里拉·蒙特罗因为她不可思议的即兴演奏技巧，还有本杰明·格罗夫纳因为他的早成……”——网友二号

“In my lifetime I’ve heard Richter, Cherkassky, Perahia, Baremboim, Lugansky, Schiff, Argerich, Ax, Pletnev et al – all original, all interesting. I lament what competitions, conservatoires and editing suites have done and that a style epitomised by Cortot, Friedmann, Paderewski has been left behind, but boring? Not really” (DG)

“在我一生中，我听过里赫特，切尔卡斯基，佩拉西亚，巴伦博伊姆，卢根斯基，席夫，阿格里奇，埃克斯，普莱特涅夫等——都是原汁原味的，都是有情有趣的。我为那些比赛、音乐学院和剪辑们所做的事而感到痛心，他们把科尔托、弗里德曼、帕德雷夫斯基的风格被抛在脑后。但是乏味？不完全是。——网友三号

“Pianists in “olden” days didn’t have and couldn’t conceive of the post-modernisms and post-colonialsms we have now. Meaning our “now” is about curating and curatorship rather than the “authenticity” of first-hand connection between pianist and composer. There’s also the interesting point about “boredom” in the title of the article – John Cage has pointed out boredom describes what we feel when we don’t connect to the moment, the now. Cage’s point was non-connection is fine (and also it’s temporary). It belongs to the individual rather than whatever the individual is looking at or hearing or experiencing…” (MP)

“从前的钢琴家没有，也不能设想我们现在所拥有的后现代主义和后殖民主义（译者注：不确定此处的翻译是否正确）。这意味着我们的‘现在’关乎规划和管理，而不是钢琴家和作曲家之间最原始最本真的联系。关于文章标题中的‘乏味’还有一个有趣的观点——约翰·凯奇指出，‘乏味’描述了当我们无法互相连结当下美好瞬间时的感觉。凯奇的观点是，没有连结也不坏（况且没有连结的这种情况也只是暂时的）。这种形容词属于个人，而不是个人在看、听到或经历的任何事物。”——网友四号

“There are many tremendously gifted pianists today, performing, recording and in intimate new venues scattered throughout the world…….there are exceptional musicians out there. The recital will thrive, and I surmise there will always be a turnover of talent as generations overlap. I actually see the piano as very much alive. There is a new generation of players studying now, and they will soon be noticed.” (JB)

“今天有许多极富天赋的钢琴家，演出、录音、出席分散在世界各地的私人会场……但仍有例外的音乐家。独奏会一定会兴盛起来，我猜想，随着一代又一代的更迭，有天赋的人也总会有更替。实际上我认为钢琴很有生命力。现在有新一代的演奏者仍在学习阶段，但他们很快就会被发现和受人瞩目。”——网友五号

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