2013年自考英语(二)课文译文:不同类型的作曲家

　　不同类型的作曲家

　　I can see three different types of composers in musical history, each of whom creates music in a somewhat different fashion.

　　在我看来，音乐史上有三类不同的作曲家，他们都以各自不同的方式创作音乐作品。

    The type that has fired public imagination most is that of the spontaneously inspired composer -- the Franz Schubert type, in other words. All composers are inspired, of course, but this type is more spontaneously inspired. Music simply wells out of him. He can't get it down on paper fast enough. You can almost tell this type of composer by his fruitful output. In certain months, Schubert wrote a song a day. Hugo Wolf did the same.

　　最能激发公众想象力的作曲家是靠灵感即兴创作的类型，即弗朗兹?舒伯特型。当然，所有的作曲家都受灵感的启迪，但舒伯特型的作曲家得到的即兴灵感更多一些。音乐就像泉水从他的心中喷涌而出，多得他都来不及迅速地把乐谱记到纸上。我们通常可以根据曲作多产来判断这一类型的作曲家。在某些月份里，舒伯特日作一歌;雨果?伍尔夫也是如此。

　　In a sense, men of this kind begin not so much with a musical theme as with a completed composition. They invariably work best in the shorter forms. It is much easier to improvise a song than it is to improvise a symphony. It isn't easy to be inspired in that spontaneous way for long periods at a stretch. Even Schubert was more successful in handling the shorter forms of music. The spontaneously inspired man is only one type of composer, with his own limitations.

　　从某种意义上说，这类作曲家与其说是从某一音乐主题开始创作，倒不如说一开始他们就有一个完整的作品。他们总是对较短篇作曲创作最擅长。即兴创作一首歌曲要比即兴创作一部交响乐容易得多。连续长时间靠灵感进行即兴创作不是件容易事，即使舒伯特也是在处理较短篇形式的音乐更得心应手。靠灵感进行即兴创作只是作曲家的一种类型，并具有其自身的局限性。

　　Beethoven belongs to the second type -- the constructive type, one might call it. This type serves as an example of my theory of the creative process in music better than any other, because in this case the composer really does begin with a musical theme. In Beethoven's case there is no doubt about it, for we have the notebooks in which he put the themes down. We can see from his notebooks how he worked over his themes -- how he would not let them be until they were as perfect as he could make them. Beethoven was not a spontaneously inspired composer in the Schubert sense at all. He was the type that begins with a theme; makes it a preliminary idea; and upon that composes a musical work, day after day, in painstaking fashion. Most composers since Beethoven's day belong to this second type.

　　贝多芬属于第二种类型，我们可以称之为创立型作曲家。这类作曲家可以作为例子，更好地说明我们的创作过程的理论，因为他们确实是以音乐主题开始构思的。就贝多芬来说，无疑就是从这样的音乐主题开始的，我们仍保留着他记录音乐主题的笔记本。从他的笔记中，我们可以了解他是怎样反复修改他的音乐主题――他是怎样尽量使他的音乐主题完美才肯罢休的。贝多芬不是舒伯特式的即兴灵感型的作曲家，他是从音乐主题开始的那种类型，再使其成为初步创立型，然后再根据这一构思，日复一日地苦干，写出一部音乐作品。贝多芬时期以来的多数作曲家都属于第二种类型。

　　The third type of composer I can only call, for lack of a better name, the traditionalist type. Men like Palestrina and Bach belong in this category. They both are characteristic of the kind of composer who is born in a particular period of musical history, when a certain musical style is about to reach its fullest development. It is a question at such a time of creating music in a well-known and accepted style and doing it in a way that is better than anyone has done it before you.

　　第三种类型的作曲家，因缺少更好的称谓，我只好称之为传统型作曲家。帕莱斯特里纳和巴赫属于这一类型。他们二人都是诞生在音乐史某一时期的代表作曲家。在这一时期某种音乐风格即将发展到其鼎盛阶段。这个时期的问题是用人们熟悉的认可的风格创作音乐，并用一种比任何前人更好的方法来创作音乐。

　　The traditionalist type of composer begins with a pattern rather than with a theme. The creative act with Palestrina is not the thematic conception so much as the personal treatment of a well-established pattern. And even Bach, who composed forty-eight of the most various and inspired themes in his Well Tempered Clavichord, knew in advance the general formal mold that they were to fill. It goes without saying that we are not living in a traditionalist period nowadays.

　　传统派作曲家是从主调而不是从主题开始创作的。帕莱斯特里纳的创作不是主旋律概念，而是对确定好的格调进行个人处理。甚至巴赫事先已知道，他创作的风格各异最具有灵感的48首《平均律钢琴曲》是填入这种总的正式模式的。不言而喻，我们现在已不是生活在传统派的时期了。

　　One might add, for the sake of completeness, a fourth type of composer -- the pioneer type: men like Gesualdo in the seventeenth century, Moussorgsky and Berlioz in the nineteenth, Debussy and Edgar Varese in the twentieth. It is difficult to summarize the composing methods of so diversified a group. One can safely say that their approach to composition is the opposite of the traditionalist type. They clearly oppose conventional solutions of musical problems. In many ways, their attitude is experimental ?they seek to add new harmonies, new sonorities, new formal principles. The pioneer type was the characteristic one at the turn of the seventeenth century and also at the beginning of the twentieth century, but it is much less evident today.

　　为了全面起见，还可以加上第四种类型的作曲家――开拓型作曲家，如17世纪的杰苏阿尔多，19世纪的穆索尔斯其和柏辽兹，以及20世纪的德彪西和埃德加?瓦雷兹。概括这样一个多样复杂群体的作曲方法是困难的，但可以肯定地说，他们的作曲方法与传统派型作曲家的恰恰相反。他们明确地反对用常规的方法解决音乐方面的问题。在许多方面，他们的态度是探索性的――他们力图增加新的合声，新的音色，并力图创立新的正规音乐理论。开拓型作曲家在17世纪之交和20世纪初期曾是特点突出的典型，但现在其特点已远不如从前那么明显了。

?2013年7月各省市自考成绩查询入口汇总

?各地10月自考时间

更多信息请访问：自学考试频道    自学考试论坛