帕尔曼追忆海菲兹丨“这么多小提琴家都试图模仿他,但他们的演奏却成了活生生的讽刺。”
The fiddler king
小提琴之王
Guiding:Jascha Heifetz(编者按:1901年2月2日-1987年12月10日), born 100 years ago, was the violinists' violinist. Itzhak Perlman remembers his hero and friend.
大师海菲茨,生于100年前,是首屈一指的小提琴家(the violinists' violinist)。这是伊扎克·帕尔曼(同为小提琴演奏家)对海菲兹的追忆,来纪念他心目中的英雄和知音。
初遇海菲兹
My first encounter with Jascha Heifetz must have come when I was about three years old. In Israel in the late 1940s there was a lot of classical music on the radio and I recall that they played a lot of his recordings. Later I realised that everything in the history of violin playing could be divided into BH and AH: Before Heifetz and After Heifetz.
我依稀记得,三岁多的时候就第一次遇到了海菲兹。在20世纪40年代的以色列,那时候收音机里播放的音乐里有很多都是古典乐,我还记得这些音乐中有很多海菲茨的录音。后来我渐渐意识到小提琴演奏史可以被划分为两个时代:海菲茨之前(BH)和海菲茨之后(AH)。
海菲兹演奏德彪西《亚麻色头发的姑娘》
I first met him when I was a nervous 14-year-old. He'd come to the Juilliard School, New York to hear some of the violin pupils. I played him the Lalo Symphonie Espanol and a Paganini Caprice and then my teacher, Ivan Galamian, said I could go. But Heifetz said, "Not so fast! I want to hear scales." Thankfully, my previous teacher in Israel had placed great importance on exercises, and I was well prepared - so when Heifetz told me the scale he wanted to hear, I could play it straight off. So our friendship started on the right foot.
当我怀着忐忑不安的心情第一次真正见到他时,我才十四岁。他去纽约茱莉亚音乐学院来聆听一些琴童的演奏,我为他演奏的是拉罗的《西班牙交响曲》还有帕格尼尼《随想曲》,当我演奏完我当时的老师伊万·加拉米安说我可以离开了。但是海菲茨叫住我说:“别着急,我还想听听你的音阶呢!”
谢天谢地,我曾经在以色列的老师很重视基本功练习,我的基本功底子相当扎实——所以,当海菲兹告诉我他想听的音阶后,我就立刻开始演奏了。于是我们的友谊就这样顺利建立了。
After that he attended a couple of my concerts, and we would meet each time I went to Los Angeles, his home town. Sometimes we'd talk on the phone - usually about everyday things, but occasionally he'd tell me about his life and career. In the middle of the conversation I would suddenly think, "Gee! I'm talking to God!" Violinists of my generation thought he was the king, and I was no exception. The last time I saw him in LA he was clearly ailing, and his death in 1987 was terribly upsetting personally, as well as a great loss to the musical world. We are lucky so many of his recordings have survived - there's so much material that his record company, RCA, was able to release a Heifetz Collection of 65 CDs in 1994.
之后他出席了我一系列音乐会,我每次到他家乡洛杉矶去时都会与他会面,有时我们还会通过电话与对方联系——几乎是无话不谈,偶尔他会告诉我一些关于他事业和生活上的事情。谈话途中我有时突然会蹦出这样的想法:“天呐,我正在跟上帝说话!”
我们这一代的小提琴家都认为他是提琴之王,我也不例外。我最后一次在洛杉矶见到他,显然他那时候已经生病了。1987年听闻他的去世的事情后我整个人非常伤心低落,他的去世也是音乐界的一大损失。我们感到庆幸因为他的许多唱片都保存下来了——他的唱片公司RCA在1994年就发行了65张CD的Heifetz专辑。
海菲兹的成就
These are fascinating - they say a lot about the evolution of his style. If you listen to the earlier recordings, made I believe when he was 16 to 18, you don't hear the individual Heifetz we all know. Of course, you hear a fantastic fiddle player, but there's the audible influence of his contemporaries, of Fritz Kreisler and Eugene Ysaye. Then, slowly, you hear his own style emerge. There was nothing generic about his mature playing: he was one of a kind. Even listening to him on the radio as a child, I remember he was always a violinist one could immediately recognise. How you describe a performer's sound is a matter of semantics, but I always found his to be very intense, very fiery.
每张专辑都非常迷人 —— 这些专辑记录了很多他音乐风格的演变历程。当你聆听他在16岁到18岁时录制的录音时,你不会以为你所听到的是我们所熟知的海菲兹的风格。当然,你会听到一个非常棒的小提琴演奏者,但他的琴声也受同时代的克莱斯勒(Fritz Kreisler)和 伊萨依(Eugene Ysaye)的影响。
然后,随着时间推移,你会听到他自己的风格浮现出来。 他成熟的演奏不带一丝平庸的成分,他自成一派。甚至当我小时候在收音机里只要听到他的音乐就能认出是他,他就是这样一个你一听见他的音乐就知道是他的提琴家。你如何描述一个表演者的声音是一个语义学(semantics)的问题,但听觉感受往往是最直观的,我总能感到他琴声中的炽热。
——延伸阅读:1、郑延益丨400年小提琴演奏史(下)丨伊萨依;2、克莱斯勒的小提琴独门绝技丨既要抗衡前辈萨拉萨蒂、伊萨伊,又要区别于后进埃尔曼、海菲兹;3、你是真的活了一万多天,还是仅仅生活了一天,却重复了一万多次丨埃尔曼演奏克莱斯勒《美丽的罗斯玛琳》
And there was nothing apologetic about it - he demanded one should listen to him. In this way, he became the opposite of Kreisler, who would play as if saying, "Here's a beautiful tune", whereas Heifetz would demand, "You! Listen to this!" Today he is still the most distinctive violinist I can think of. The discs are amazing, but they don't tell the whole story. The violinist Nathan Milstein once advised me to "forget the recordings - they are no comparison to hearing him live". Imagine that! I was lucky enough to hear him play a couple of times when he made a comeback in his early 60s. Lots of people said he was a cold player because he was so motionless, but that couldn't be further from the truth. He looked cold, but he played hot.
这件事没有什么可解释的 —— 他的琴声就仿佛一道指令,让闻者无一不臣服于他。就这样,他变成了同克莱斯勒截然相反的演奏家,克莱斯勒演奏起来就像是在说:“这是首优美的曲子”,而海菲兹则会说:“你!听这个!”今天,他仍然是我所能想到的最有特色的小提琴家。 这些专辑很神奇,但它们仍是冰山一角。
小提琴家米尔斯坦(Nathan Milstein)曾经建议我“忘掉那些录音——听它们和现场听他的演奏是无法相比的”。想想看!我很幸运地听到他在60岁出头的几次复出演奏回。很多人说他是一个冷酷的演奏家,因为他是如此的波澜不惊,但这与事实相去甚远。他看上去冷漠无情,但他的演奏却热情洋溢如火般炽热。
The goals he set still remain, and for violinists today it's rather depressing that they may never really be attained again. It's as if he broke the four-minute mile, and no one else has been able to come close. So many violinists have tried to imitate him, but their playing becomes a caricature. Early in my career I realised that many of my recordings so far had been of things I loved to hear Heifetz play, but as I play in an old-fashioned style anyway, and could never really divorce myself from the way I usually perform, I hope I avoided being a caricature.
他是里程碑式的,至今无人能超越。对今天的小提琴手来说,他们可能永远不会真正达到他曾经的成就,这让人很沮丧。这就好像他打破了四分钟一英里的纪录,而没有人能够与他相提并论。
这么多小提琴家都试图模仿他,但他们的演奏却成了活生生的讽刺。从我的职业生涯的早期一直到现在,我意识到我喜欢聆听的许多唱片都是海菲茨演奏的,但由于我使用的是老式的风格,而且我永远不会真正脱离我通常的表演方式,所以为避免成为一个讽刺我并不会模仿他。
致敬海菲兹
I've been doing tribute concerts to Heifetz for a couple of years now, but my programme at the Festival Hall next week will be the first in the UK. I've researched the programmes he gave in venues including Carnegie Hall. I'm very pleased to be playing the Sonata No 1 by Saint-Saens as it was a piece he really championed, especially towards the end of his career. I'll also be playing several of Heifetz's own arrangements. I often use these as encores - every violinist does, as his and Kreisler's transcriptions are still the major sources of light, virtuoso pieces.
我已经做了好几年的向海菲兹致敬的音乐会了,但是我下周在音乐厅的演出将是在英国的首场。我参考了他曾经在卡内基音乐厅等地演出的曲目。我很高兴能演奏圣桑的《第一号(小提琴)奏鸣曲》,因为这是他真正巅峰之作,尤其是在他职业生涯的最后阶段。我也将表演海菲兹自己的改编作品(arrangements)。我经常使用这些作为加演——像每一个小提琴家所做的那样,因为他和克莱斯勒的改编曲( transcriptions)仍然是大演奏家返场的主要来源——这些音乐作品(pieces)大都轻松(light)且技巧精湛(virtuoso)。
He was a wonderful pianist who really knew the instrument, and his harmonies are quite individual, with maybe a little taste of Rachmaninov. I love his Baroque pieces, his reworkings of Ravel and Debussy and also his transcriptions of Gershwin. They were quite revolutionary in their way - we didn't have the term crossover then, but they are definitely in that mould. Heifetz recorded a couple of Gershwin songs with Bing Crosby - he played in the best Hollywood tradition, sounding totally comfortable. I once had the pleasure of playing Heifetz's violin, a Guarneri del Jesu known as the "Ex-David". It's now in a small museum in San Francisco, but for a while it was displayed in the Met Museum, where I gave a recital. My ear was where his would have been, listening to the sound of his violin.
他是一位出色的钢琴家,他很熟悉钢琴,他的和声也很有个性,也许有点拉赫玛尼诺夫的味道。我喜欢他的巴洛克作品,他对拉威尔和德彪西的改编,以及他对格什温的改编曲。这些作品在改编上相当革命——我们没有术语(terms)描述这种融合(crossover),但他们的确浇筑成一体了。海菲兹和克罗斯比(Bing Crosby)一起录制了几首格什温的歌曲,他的演奏的是最具好莱坞传统,听起来非常舒服。
我曾经有幸拉海菲兹的小提琴,一把被称为“Ex-David”的瓜奈利(Guarneri del Jesu)小提琴。现在它在旧金山的一个小博物馆里,但有一段时间它被陈列在大都会博物馆,在那里我举行了一场演奏会。我的耳朵就在他要去的地方,听着他的小提琴的声音。
But, in a way, that sound had always been in my head. I wouldn't say there are any parallels between our careers, and I certainly don't want to draw comparisons between our playing. But I grew up with certain sounds in my ears, and if there are similarities between my interpretations and his, it is not something I'm trying to do - it is something I feel.
但是,从某种意义上说,他的琴声一直在我的脑海里回荡。我不会说我们的职业生涯有任何相似之处,我当然也不想在我们的演奏之间作比较。但我是伴随着这些回荡在我脑海里的琴声成长的,如果我的解释和他的有相似之处,这不是我有意为之的而是我发自肺腑的感受。
(向上滑动启阅)
帕尔曼原文:
The fiddler king
Jascha Heifetz, born 100 years ago, was the violinists' violinist. Itzhak Perlman remembers his hero and friend.
My first encounter with Jascha Heifetz must have come when I was about three years old. In Israel in the late 1940s there was a lot of classical music on the radio and I recall that they played a lot of his recordings. Later I realised that everything in the history of violin playing could be divided into BH and AH: Before Heifetz and After Heifetz.
I first met him when I was a nervous 14-year-old. He'd come to the Juilliard School, New York to hear some of the violin pupils. I played him the Lalo Symphonie Espanol and a Paganini Caprice and then my teacher, Ivan Galamian, said I could go. But Heifetz said, "Not so fast! I want to hear scales." Thankfully, my previous teacher in Israel had placed great importance on exercises, and I was well prepared - so when Heifetz told me the scale he wanted to hear, I could play it straight off. So our friendship started on the right foot.
After that he attended a couple of my concerts, and we would meet each time I went to Los Angeles, his home town. Sometimes we'd talk on the phone - usually about everyday things, but occasionally he'd tell me about his life and career. In the middle of the conversation I would suddenly think, "Gee! I'm talking to God!" Violinists of my generation thought he was the king, and I was no exception.
The last time I saw him in LA he was clearly ailing, and his death in 1987 was terribly upsetting personally, as well as a great loss to the musical world. We are lucky so many of his recordings have survived - there's so much material that his record company, RCA, was able to release a Heifetz Collection of 65 CDs in 1994. These are fascinating - they say a lot about the evolution of his style. If you listen to the earlier recordings, made I believe when he was 16 to 18, you don't hear the individual Heifetz we all know. Of course, you hear a fantastic fiddle player, but there's the audible influence of his contemporaries, of Fritz Kreisler and Eugène Ysaÿe. Then, slowly, you hear his own style emerge.
There was nothing generic about his mature playing: he was one of a kind. Even listening to him on the radio as a child, I remember he was always a violinist one could immediately recognise. How you describe a performer's sound is a matter of semantics, but I always found his to be very intense, very fiery. And there was nothing apologetic about it - he demanded one should listen to him. In this way, he became the opposite of Kreisler, who would play as if saying, "Here's a beautiful tune", whereas Heifetz would demand, "You! Listen to this!" Today he is still the most distinctive violinist I can think of.
The discs are amazing, but they don't tell the whole story. The violinist Nathan Milstein once advised me to "forget the recordings - they are no comparison to hearing him live". Imagine that! I was lucky enough to hear him play a couple of times when he made a comeback in his early 60s. Lots of people said he was a cold player because he was so motionless, but that couldn't be further from the truth. He looked cold, but he played hot.
The goals he set still remain, and for violinists today it's rather depressing that they may never really be attained again. It's as if he broke the four-minute mile, and no one else has been able to come close. So many violinists have tried to imitate him, but their playing becomes a caricature. Early in my career I realised that many of my recordings so far had been of things I loved to hear Heifetz play, but as I play in an old-fashioned style anyway, and could never really divorce myself from the way I usually perform, I hope I avoided being a caricature.
I've been doing tribute concerts to Heifetz for a couple of years now, but my programme at the Festival Hall next week will be the first in the UK. I've researched the programmes he gave in venues including Carnegie Hall. I'm very pleased to be playing the Sonata No 1 by Saint-Saëns as it was a piece he really championed, especially towards the end of his career. I'll also be playing several of Heifetz's own arrangements. I often use these as encores - every violinist does, as his and Kreisler's transcriptions are still the major sources of light, virtuoso pieces.
He was a wonderful pianist who really knew the instrument, and his harmonies are quite individual, with maybe a little taste of Rachmaninov. I love his Baroque pieces, his reworkings of Ravel and Debussy and also his transcriptions of Gershwin. They were quite revolutionary in their way - we didn't have the term crossover then, but they are definitely in that mould. Heifetz recorded a couple of Gershwin songs with Bing Crosby - he played in the best Hollywood tradition, sounding totally comfortable.
I once had the pleasure of playing Heifetz's violin, a Guarneri del Jesu known as the "Ex-David". It's now in a small museum in San Francisco, but for a while it was displayed in the Met Museum, where I gave a recital. My ear was where his would have been, listening to the sound of his violin.
But, in a way, that sound had always been in my head. I wouldn't say there are any parallels between our careers, and I certainly don't want to draw comparisons between our playing. But I grew up with certain sounds in my ears, and if there are similarities between my interpretations and his, it is not something I'm trying to do - it is something I feel.
Itzhak Perlman's centenary tribute to Heifetz is at the Royal Festival Hall, London SE1 (020-7960 4242), on April 24.