2020年经济学人 钢琴巨匠莱昂·弗莱舍(1)

A while after his argument with the patio¹ table, when his sliced right thumb had had stitches and appeared to be healing, Leon Fleisher noticed a sluggishness² in his right index finger. It was especially unresponsive when he tried to play trills, and that was no small matter. The ascending³ trills in the cadenza of the adagio⁴ of the Brahms first piano concerto⁵, each joined by the next and then prolonged with a touch of the pedal—just a little, nothing showy— had a resonance⁶ like the shimmering⁷ of the universe.

莱昂·弗莱舍被切开的右手拇指缝好了针，似乎正在愈合。而他在露台餐桌上与人争论后不久，就注意到自己右手食指动作迟缓。尤其是当他试图演奏颤音时，右手食指没有反应，这可不是件小事。勃拉姆斯第一钢琴协奏曲的慢板华彩乐段中的上升颤音，每一个都与下一个相连，然后随着他触摸踏板而延长——只是一点点，没有炫耀的意味——它有一种像宇宙闪烁的共鸣。

He noticed, too, that the fourth and fifth fingers of his right hand were starting to curl under. This made the playing of triplets more or less impossible. Yet in the third movement of the Brahms they made the dancing culmination⁸ of the work, delighting him so much that they made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. In short he could no longer play the most important piece in his life, the one that had first struck him like Thor’s thunder on his 12th birthday, had anchored his debut⁹ as “the pianistic find of the century” at Carnegie Hall in New York when he was 16, and had been his talisman¹⁰ and friend ever since.

弗莱舍还注意到，他右手的第四和第五根手指开始弯起来。这使他几乎不可能演奏三连音符。但是在勃拉姆斯的第三乐章中，他们把舞蹈推向了高潮，这使他非常开心，脖子后面的汗毛都竖起来了。简言之，他不能再演奏他生命中最重要的乐章了。弗莱舍12岁生日时第一次听到那个乐章，当时就像雷神的雷声击中一般。16岁时，他在纽约卡内基音乐厅首演时弹奏该曲目后，便被冠名为“世纪钢琴发现”。自那以后，这首曲子一直是他的护身符和朋友。

He, whose greatest terror was failure, could not, in fact, play anything. It was 1964, and he was 36. In the spring he was due to tour the Soviet¹¹ Union, having performed in America and Europe all through the 1950s. He had made definitive¹² recordings¹³ of Liszt, Beethoven and Brahms with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra, with Leonard Bernstein and with Otto Klemperer.

他最大的恐惧就是失败，实际上，他什么曲子也弹奏不了了。那是1964年，他只有36岁。春天，他本来要去苏联进行巡回演出。整个20世纪50年代，他都在美国和欧洲演出。弗莱舍已与乔治·塞尔、克利夫兰交响乐团、伦纳德·伯恩斯坦和奥托·克伦佩雷尔一起录制了李斯特、贝多芬和勃拉姆斯的最佳曲目。

1 patio   

n.庭院，平台

参考例句：

• Suddenly, the thought of my beautiful patio came to mind. I can be quiet out there,I thought.我又忽然想到家里漂亮的院子，我能够在这里宁静地呆会。
• They had a barbecue on their patio on Sunday.星期天他们在院子里进行烧烤。

2 sluggishness   

不振，萧条，呆滞；惰性；滞性；惯性

参考例句：

• Such estimate of viscosities do give us some concept of the sluggishness of debris flows. 这种对泥石流粘度的估计确实给我们提供了一些泥石流惰性方面的概念。 来自辞典例句
• The general appearance of sluggishness alarmed his friends. 那种呆滞的样子吓坏了他的朋友们。 来自互联网

3 ascending   

adj.上升的，向上的

参考例句：

• Now draw or trace ten dinosaurs in ascending order of size.现在按照体型由小到大的顺序画出或是临摹出10只恐龙。

4 adagio   

adj.缓慢的；n.柔板；慢板；adv.缓慢地

参考例句：

• The tempo marking in most cases is andante,adagio,or largo.大多数第一乐章的速度标记是行板、柔板或广板。
• Play the adagio since that's the only goddamned thing you know.就弹那首慢板吧，那是你唯一会弹的鬼曲子。

5 concerto   

n.协奏曲

参考例句：

• The piano concerto was well rendered.钢琴协奏曲演奏得很好。
• The concert ended with a Mozart violin concerto.音乐会在莫扎特的小提琴协奏曲中结束。

6 resonance   

n.洪亮；共鸣；共振

参考例句：

• Playing the piano sets up resonance in those glass ornaments.一弹钢琴那些玻璃饰物就会产生共振。
• The areas under the two resonance envelopes are unequal.两个共振峰下面的面积是不相等的。

7 shimmering   

v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The sea was shimmering in the sunlight. 阳光下海水波光闪烁。
• The colours are delicate and shimmering. 这些颜色柔和且闪烁微光。 来自辞典例句

8 culmination   

n.顶点；最高潮

参考例句：

• The space race reached its culmination in the first moon walk.太空竞争以第一次在月球行走而达到顶峰。
• It may truly be regarded as the culmination of classical Greek geometry.这确实可以看成是古典希腊几何的登峰造级之作。

9 debut   

n.首次演出，初次露面

参考例句：

• That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里，他初次在百老汇登台，扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
• The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。

10 talisman   

n.避邪物，护身符

参考例句：

• It was like a talisman worn in bosom.它就象佩在胸前的护身符一样。
• Dress was the one unfailling talisman and charm used for keeping all things in their places.冠是当作保持品位和秩序的一种万应灵符。

11 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

12 definitive   

adj.确切的，权威性的；最后的，决定性的

参考例句：

• This book is the definitive guide to world cuisine.这本书是世界美食的权威指南。
• No one has come up with a definitive answer as to why this should be so.至于为什么该这样，还没有人给出明确的答复。

13 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐