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Saint-Saens on Music and Musicians 书评：《圣桑论音乐与音乐家》 By Roger Nichols 推荐阅读：纪念圣·桑丨Saint-Saens: On Music and Musicians Camille Saint-Sa?ns is a memorable figure not only for his successes as a composer of choral and orchestral works, and the eternally popular opera Samson et Dalila, but also because he was a keen observer of the musical culture in which he lived. 圣·桑是一个令人难忘的人物，不仅因为他是一名杰出的作曲家，在合唱和管弦乐作品的创作领域和著名的歌剧作品《参孙与达丽拉》取得巨大成功，还因为圣·桑是与之共生的音乐文化的热心观察者。 A composer of vast intelligence and erudition, Saint-Sa?ns was at the same time one of the foremost writers on music in his day. From Wagner, Liszt and Debussy to Milhaud and Stravinsky, Saint-Sa?ns was at the center of the elite musical and cultural fin de siècle and early 20th Century world. 作为一位拥有巨大智慧和博学的作曲家，圣·桑同时也是他那个时代音乐界最重要的作曲家之一。从瓦格纳、李斯特和德彪西到米尔豪德和斯特拉文斯基，圣·桑是20世纪早期世界精英音乐和文化艺术的中心人物。  He championed Schumann and Wagner in France at a period when these composers were regarded as dangerous subversives whose music should be kept well away from the impressionable student. 在法国时他欣赏舒曼和瓦格纳，当时这两位作曲家被认为是危险的颠覆者，他们的音乐应该远离那些敏感的学生。 Yet Saint-Sa?ns himself had no aspirations to being a revolutionary, and his appreciation of Wagner the composer was tempered by his reservations over Wagner the philosopher and dramatist, suspicious as he was of what he called 'the Germanic preoccupation with going beyond reality.' 虽然圣·桑自己并没有成为一名颠覆者的意愿，因为他对瓦格纳所谓的“超越现实的日耳曼思想”持怀疑态度。他对瓦格纳的哲学家和剧作家身份持保守态度，这也使得圣桑对于瓦格纳的欣赏程度大打折扣。无论是为梅耶贝尔辩护，去否认那些对梅耶贝尔创作技巧的质疑；  Whether defending Meyerbeer against charges of facility or Berlioz against those who questioned his harmonic grasp, Saint-Sa?ns was always his own man: in both cases, he claimed, it was 'not the absence of faults but the presence of virtues' that distinguishes the good composer. 还是为柏辽兹和声设计而辩护，圣·桑始终坚持自我。在为这两人辩护时圣·桑声称，区分优秀作曲家的，不是“缺点”而是“闪光点”。 Saint-Sa?ns's writings provide a well-argued counter-discourse to the strong modernist music critics who rallied around Debussy and Ravel during the fin de siècle. And above all, they demonstrate a brilliantly sharp and active brain, expressing itself through prose of a Classical purity and balance, enlivened throughout with flashes of wit and, at times, of sheer malice. 《圣桑论音乐与音乐家》（Saint-Saens on Music and Musicians）这部著作为那些在19世纪末团结在德彪西和拉威尔周围的强大的现代主义音乐评论家提供了一个很好的反论。最重要的是，这些文章证明圣桑拥有敏锐而灵活的头脑，他通过充盈着古典的圣洁和平衡感的文字来表达自己的观点，整部著作中不断有智慧之光闪烁其间现，有时甚至充满了狡黠的恶意。 （译者注：Fin de siècle，意思是世纪的结束,一个术语通常包含两个类似的英语习语的意义的世纪,也使引用一个时代的结束和另一个的开始。这个词通常用来指19世纪末。）  In this generously annotated volume, renowned scholar, seasoned translator and radio broadcaster Roger Nichols brings some of the composer's most striking and evocative writings brilliantly to life in English translation, many for the first time. 在这本注解丰富的书中，著名学者、经验丰富的翻译家和无线电节目广播员罗杰·尼科尔斯用英文翻译了圣桑这部最引人入胜的作品，其中许多文字是第一次被译成英文。 Nichols has carefully chosen these selections for their intrinsic interest as historical documents to create a well-balanced and engaging view of the man, the music, and the age. 尼科尔斯慎之又慎地遣词造句，使得这本译作作为历史文献资料充分展现它的内在价值，并恰到妙处传达出属于圣桑的人生观、音乐观、以及时代观。  欢迎加入编译组一起做翻译！ |
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