Glenn Gould: a wilfully idiotic genius?
格倫·古爾德：一位固執且愚蠢的天才？
By:Tom service
It's 30 years since the death of Glenn Gould, but the pianist still provokes strong reactions. So how do today's top players assess his legacy?It still sounds like nothing you've ever heard, however many times you listen to it: Glenn Gould's first recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, made in 1955, has an energy, an intensity and a sheer joy that is as irresistible today as it was when astonished record-buyers first heard it nearly 60 years ago.
格倫·古爾德已經過世三十年了，但是，這位鋼琴家仍引起強烈反響。那麼，今天的音樂名家都是如何評價古爾德的作品呢？不管你聽了多少遍古爾德1955年第一次錄製的《巴赫：哥德堡奏鳴曲》，都會感到有一種力量吸引著你，有種純粹的愉悅感，就像60年前，人們第一次聆聽這張唱片時，那樣倍受震驚，無法抗拒。
It's no surprise that this record launched the myth of Gould as much as it signalled the start of his career, but no one could have predicted the effect this young Canadian pianist would have on music.Lauded the world over – his tour to Russia in 1957 is still remembered fondly by Vladimir Ashkenazy and by everyone else who packed out the concert halls to hear him – Gould none the less seemed to steadily retreat from public view.
這張唱片也讓古爾德成為音樂神話，開啟了他的傳奇音樂生涯，也就不足為奇了。但是，無人能預知這位年輕加拿大鋼琴家對音樂產生什麼影響。古爾德當時享譽全球，1957年的俄羅斯巡演，仍被阿什肯納齊和每一個為聆聽過現場演奏的任所銘記。儘管如此，古爾德依然堅定地退公眾視野。
He gave his last concert in 1964, confining himself to the recording studio for the rest of his short life.One of his final recordings was a second, markedly slower and more deliberate version of the Goldbergs in 1981. His ideas on editing were decades ahead of their time: he dreamed of a true democracy of recordings, when listeners would be able to edit their own versions of tracks, as we can now all do at the click of a mouse.
1964年，古爾德開了他最後一次音樂會，他短暫人生在錄音室裡度過。古爾德最後錄的幾張唱片裡，他於1981年錄的第二版哥德堡變奏曲，這版節奏緩慢，更富思想性。古爾德在編輯上的想法超越了他那個時代幾十年：他夢想實現唱片的真正民主化，聽眾可以剪輯自己的音軌版本，就想我們現在用滑鼠點擊一下就能完成一樣。
He was also an eccentric hypochondriac, whose obsessive personality traits (he wore an overcoat and gloves no matter the temperature, and insisted on playing on the same ancient, battered chair) were exacerbated in his final years by cocktails of antidepressants and anxiety-suppressing pills that were, ironically, more harmful to him than helpful.He died shortly after his 50th birthday, on 4 October 1982. Yet that was just the start of the Gould myth. The apparent weirdness of this reclusive genius has only added to the mystique as much as the iconoclasm of the recordings – his brilliant Bach, for sure, but also his wilfully idiotic Mozart and tortuous Beethoven.
古爾德是個古怪的疑病症患者，他晚年時，強迫症更為嚴重（不管多熱，他都穿外套，戴手套，堅持坐在老舊的椅子上彈琴）。他喝抗抑鬱雞尾酒，服用抗焦慮藥物，對他健康不僅沒起到幫助作用，反而害了他，實在是諷刺。 1982年10月4日，古爾德過完五十歲大壽後不久，便與世長辭。然而，這只是古爾德傳奇一生的開始。這個與世隔絕的天才讓人捉摸不透，讓其神秘感倍增，以及一改傳統風格的錄音——他彈的巴赫簡直棒極了，莫扎特的狂妄，貝多芬的曲折，都表現得淋漓盡致。
But underneath the eccentric control-freakery was a much more normal person than has often been portrayed. He was a loner, certainly, but Gould was also one of the funniest and most playful musicians there has ever been, he was an irrepressible and essential thinker on music, and his records and radio documentaries are fuelled by a ceaseless curiosity about the world and music's place in it.In what would have been his 80th year, we asked leading pianists what Gould means to them. As you'll discover, he's still a controversial figure.
在古怪的控制欲背後，古爾德比所描繪出來的要正常的多。他是我所見過的最有趣、最會玩的音樂家了，他對音樂的思考總是自發流露出來，對世界葆有無盡的好奇下，錄製了唱片和廣播節目。在他八十歲誕辰之際，我們邀請了幾位頗具影響力的鋼琴家來談談古爾德對他們的影響。你會發現，古爾德仍然是個備受爭議的人物。
Angela Hewitt
安吉拉·休伊特
Glenn Gould was an unavoidable presence when I was growing up in Ottowa. He was already a sort of legend, although not the kind of myth he has become since his death. When I was four or five, his programmes would be on CBC (the Canadian Broadcasting Company) on a Sunday night. I remember running into my parents' room and seeing this person with the piano up his nose! At that age, I couldn't understand what he was doing – and even at an older age, it was difficult.
我在渥太華長大的時候，古爾德就，儘管不像他過世後那樣風靡，但他那時已算得上是傳奇人物了。我四五歲的時候，CBC（加拿大廣播公司）周日晚上就會播他的節目。我記得當時自己跑到父母房間，看到古爾德竟然用鼻子彈鋼琴！那時候，我還不知道他當時在幹什麼——待我年齡大了之後，才知道這樣彈琴是很難的。
We bought his recordings whenever a new LP came out. I remember his Brahms, his Strauss, and of course his Bach. We would listen to his Bach discs – my parents were musicians too – and my dad would say: "That's a ridiculous tempo. What's he playing it like that for?" (By and large, if it was a slow piece, he would play it too fast, and vice versa.) But there was always something to admire. He was a wonderful pianist, and the way he played Bach was a sensation at the time. It was totally fearless, there's a ferocity, a youthful exuberance and energy in his playing. But I have never imitated him.
每次古爾德新唱片黑膠版一出，我們就買了。我仍記得他彈的勃拉姆斯、施特勞斯，當然還有巴赫的作品。我父母也是音樂家——我爸說：「古爾德彈的速度很怪啊，他為什麼這樣表現呢？」（總的來說，如果原作速度滿，他會彈得很快；如果原作速度快，他就會慢下來。）但總是有值得欣賞之處，他是個出色的鋼琴家，他演奏的巴赫轟動一時。他的琴聲裡，有一種無所畏懼、攻勢猛烈、青春洋溢、活力無限。
I never wanted to come out like a bad copy of Glenn Gould. I first played the Goldberg Variations when I was 16. I remember going to the library and listening to Gould's recording, the famous 1955 one. I only listened to it once, though, and I recorded the Well-Tempered Clavier without even listening to his version. The thing with Gould is that there are wonderful and horrible things. You wonder why he played Mozart the way he did, and in Beethoven … I saw a film of the cello sonatas with Leonard Rose, and there's not much visible contact between the two.
但我從來沒有模仿過他的演奏法，因為我不想成為一個低配版格倫·古爾德。我16歲時，第一次彈了哥德堡變奏曲，我記得當時去圖書館聽古爾德的錄音，就是1955年錄製的那張出名的唱片。儘管我只聽過一遍，我甚至沒聽他彈的版本，就自己錄了十二平均律鋼琴曲集。古爾德彈的曲子，既有讓人為之喝彩的部分，也有人們難以接受的部分。你會想知道，為什麼他這樣處理莫扎特的作品，又為什麼那樣處理貝多芬的作品……我看過李納德·羅斯（Leonard Rose）大提琴奏鳴曲的錄影，他和古爾德之間沒什麼聯繫。
His memory and his ideas were extraordinary, but he was eccentric and incredibly neurotic as well. There's a lot of sadness in his life – that it ended so soon, that he was taking all those pills. I sometimes think the cult of Gould is a little exaggerated, so that we end up talking about the personality rather than how he played the piano.
他有出色的記憶力和絕妙的想法，但他也性格古怪，時常會犯神經質。古爾德一生有太多的悲情——不過他會服藥，很快就不感到痛苦了。我有時認為，有些過度痴迷古爾德了，所以，我們不談他的性格，而專注於他彈琴的方式。
Stephen Hough
史蒂芬·霍夫
Although Gould seemed to be ahead of his time - a prophet even - when he saw people preferring to listen to music on recordings rather than in the concert hall, what he didn't see was that technology would make recorded music so available and anarchic. The LP record's hi-fidelity made it possible for him to live comfortably on the profits of his royalties.
儘管古爾德看起來不像他那個時代的人——甚至有點預言家的氣息——尤其是在他看到人們更喜歡聽演奏錄音，而非聽音樂會現場。他所忽略的是，科技讓音樂唱片容易獲得，同時也擾亂了唱片市場。黑膠唱片的高保真性，讓他足以靠版權賺一點利潤，生活上還算輕鬆。
It would be impossible for him to do this in today's higher-fidelity, streaming, reproducing marketplace where questions are being raised about the ability to maintain copyright control on any level. Nevertheless he created a new way of thinking about recorded music where the LP became an art form in itself - not just a replica of a live performance.And that first recording of the Goldberg Variations, so alive and alert and fresh - accompanied by legends of soaking arms, thick gloves and creaky seats - ushered in a new era in public relations.
如果生活在今天的高保真、流媒體、再版市場，古爾德一定不會過得那麼輕鬆，能否維護版權控制，在今天一直是個問題。然而，他對黑膠成為藝術形式本身有自己的想法——不僅僅是現場表演的複製品。哥德堡變奏曲的第一版錄音，生動、鮮明——伴隨著溼透的手臂、戴著厚手套、坐在咯吱作響的凳子上——開創公共關係新時代。
But beyond all the fashion and myth, Glenn Gould was a transcendental pianist. Even if all he touched turned to Gould (few artists are as recognisable across so many different styles) he nevertheless played with a heated passion of communication - made all the more telling and poignant delivered as it was from a reclusive apartment in the cold suburbs of Toronto.
* Stephen Hough performs with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican on 12 October.
但是，除了古爾德身上所有的時尚感和神秘感之外，他是一位傑出的鋼琴家。即使他接觸的鋼琴家都變成了古爾德（很少有藝術家在不同的風格中還能彰顯自身特色）。然而，古爾德激情洋溢的彈琴，就好像琴聲是從多倫多寒冷郊區隱蔽宅子裡傳出來的聲音一樣，琴聲訴說著故事，時而靈動，時而哀傷。
Steven Osborne
史蒂夫·奧斯本
I can't think of the Goldberg Variations without Gould. I find what he does so utterly compelling that I've never really thought to learn the piece myself: I think about the Goldbergs, and just imagine him playing, and there's no point in playing it like him again. Initially, it was his second recording of it, the one he made in 1981, that I heard.
一提到哥德堡變奏曲，我就想到古爾德。我發現他處理得扣人心弦，我絕不會想到去自學這首曲子：我想到哥德堡變奏曲，就想像古爾德在彈琴，像他一樣再彈一遍就沒意義了。我最初聽的是他於1981年錄製的第二版唱片。
The contrapuntal detail he finds in every bar is amazing; no one has equalled the way he plays the aria. But even more extraordinary is the line he creates that connects the whole piece.I'm not sure I have heard anything where every single note is placed so carefully, is so carefully thought about. For some people, it's too controlled, but I don't find that. And yet I prefer his 1955 recording of the piece.
他在……所發現的每一個對位細節都很驚人，無人能與他彈詠嘆調的方式相匹敵，更讓人嘆為觀止的是，他寫的小節能串聯整個作品。我不確定他彈出來的每個音符都是認真處理，仔細考慮過的。對很多人來說，這有點過于謹慎，但我不認為如此。然而我更喜歡1955年的那版錄音。
I can't think of a single artist who made such a profound change in their approach to a piece throughout their whole career. In the later record, he sometimes goes at half the speed of the earlier one. And what makes the earlier record so wonderful is its spontaneity – it's really happening in the moment, and it just makes me smile. It's a combination of the incredible technical control he has, but it's also that he is expressing something so incredibly powerful. It's a sucker punch.
一個藝術家，在他們的演奏生涯中，大幅改變一首作品的演奏方法，我不知道還有哪個人會這樣做了。在1981年那版錄音中，他彈的比1955年那版慢一半。1955年那版錄音如此精彩是因其發揮自然——真的就在那一刻，我聽完後會心一笑。那版的錄音不僅是他對技術控制的完美拿捏，還是他對某種力量的詮釋。太厲害了！
Pierre Laurent Aimard
皮埃爾·勞倫特·艾瑪德
I am fascinated by the strength of Gould's personality, his intelligence, his cleverness, and the way he was able to realise his own world so completely through his playing.I have a great admiration as a pianist for how he did that. He could be very interesting and funny, and his writings are always quality entertainment.
我被古爾德性格中的力量、智慧、機敏、以及他投入的演奏來實現自己的世界的方式所深深吸引。我作為一個鋼琴家，非常敬佩古爾德，佩服他是如何做到這些事的。他風趣幽默，寫的作品總是高水準曲子，還不失娛樂性。
He was an eccentric, certainly, but the way he absorbed the music he played, the way he realised the polyphony of, say, Bach, makes him an interesting phenomenon and ensures his place in the pantheon of Bach players.But I am somehow frustrated and irritated by the result in his recordings. Frustrated because he seems to be living in an exclusively Glenn Gould world.
他的確古怪，但是他投入的演奏音樂的方式，他彈的巴赫復調作品，讓他成為一個有趣的現象級人物，在一眾巴赫作品演奏家中佔有一席之地。但我現在對他的唱片有點失望和憤怒。失望是因為他看起來只活在格倫·古爾德自己的小世界裡。
The question is how he communicates his emotions through the sound of the instrument. There is a problem with his motoric, automatic approach to tempo, and there is a problem with his sound. It's not that it's not a beautiful sound, it's rather that there is no flexibility in the way he phrases the melodies and harmonies of what he's playing.
問題是他使用樂器的聲音來表達自身情感的方式。他處理節奏時，雙手自發的去觸碰琴鍵。他的琴聲也有些問題，並不是聲音不好，而是他演奏時，處理旋律與和聲時不夠靈活。
And the irritation? That comes from the mannerisms and the affectations of his playing. What you are aiming for, as a listener, is to forget about the performer, to listen just to the music, but in Gould's playing, there is too much that disturbs to forget about him. There are many clever commercial reasons for the cult of Gould that existed during his lifetime and still does now. I'm not a fan nor a member of that club, but I'm more frustrated by the fact that for many people he is the Bach interpreter.There are many other people who are really remarkable in this music, and Gould is certainly not a person who plays Bach's music in a way that is without question-marks.
那又為何憤怒呢？那是因為他演奏時，過於彰顯自己的風格，顯得做作。作為聽眾，你所追求的，就是忘記演奏者，專注音樂本身，但是在古爾德的演奏中，有太多幹擾源了，觀眾無法忘記他的存在。在古爾德一生中，甚至到現在，還流傳著許多痴迷古爾德的種種原因。我不是古爾德粉，但很多人認為他是巴赫最好的詮釋者，這一點讓我很失望。還有很多鋼琴家演繹的巴赫都非常精彩，古爾德確實不能算是彈巴赫作品不受外界質疑的那個人。
Francesco Piemontesi
弗朗西斯科·皮埃蒙特
Gould's sound, his perspectives, the way he experimented with recording techniques, are often in my thoughts. I'm grateful he left so much interesting material for us to listen to, to read and to amuse ourselves with. His humour is really unique – take a look at his alter egos, the German musicologist Dr Klopweisser, the English conductor Sir Nigel Twitt-Thornwaite and the hostile critic Theodore Slutz.
古爾德的琴聲、他對音樂的看法、以及他的錄音技術方式時常縈繞在我的腦海。他留下了如此多有趣的材料供我們聆聽、閱讀和自娛自樂，我心存感激。一瞥他的至交們-德國的音樂學者Klopweisser博士，英國的指揮家Nigel Twitt-Thornwait爵士，還有頗有敵意的評論家Theodore Slutz，可見他獨特的幽默感。
But the most important aspect of the work Gould did was his love affair with the recording process. He thought of technology as a creative experience within classical music. There is a wonderful video where you see him playing around (with the help of different microphones) with different sound perspectives within a Scriabin prélude.
古爾德所做的工作中，最為重要的一面當屬他對錄音工程的鐘情。他把錄音技術視為古典音樂中創造性體驗的一部分。有一部記錄古爾德如何用不同的聲音把玩音樂的空間感，那是一個關於斯克裡亞賓的前奏曲的視頻，令人驚嘆不已。
The sound landscapes he creates through this process remind me of a good régisseur who shows you the same scene from different angles and thereby creates contrasting psychological perspectives. (I'm thinking, for instance, of the opening scene of David Lynch's Blue Velvet.) From what I understand of Gould, he dismissed the almost religious atmosphere of the concert hall and was keen to establish a more equal relationship between artist and listener. He even encouraged the listener to "manipulate" the sound of recordings to create the ideal conditions for a particular piece of music. In an article published in the 60s he wrote: "There is nothing to prevent a dedicated connoisseur from acting as his own tape-editor, and exercising such interpretative predilections as will permit him to create his own ideal performance."
古爾德通過這一錄音工程創造的聲音實景讓我想起傑出的電影製作人，大師通過不同的角度呈現出同樣的景色，而由此創造出了具有強烈衝突的精神視角。（比如，我想起了大衛•林奇導演的《藍色絲絨》序幕。）據我對古爾德的了解，他摒棄了絕大部分音樂廳的儀式氣氛，而熱衷於在藝術家和聽眾之間構建一種平等的關係。他甚至鼓勵聽眾親手「操控」錄音，針對特定的曲子造就理想的條件。在一篇發表於60年代的文章中，古爾德寫到：「從來沒有什麼可以阻止一個音樂鑑賞家進行他自己的錄音剪輯，隨心所欲地創作自己的理想音樂。」
This process, in which he certainly was a pioneer, led to very inspiring results: you can hear, for instance, how he creates a sound landscape in his late recording of La Valse by Ravel, almost as if he was playing with different microphone perspectives as he did in the Scriabin. Only, the Ravel recording was done without the aforementioned mic trick - it was his playing doing all of this.
這一過程帶來了一系列啟發性的結果，其中古爾德毋庸置疑地扮演了先驅者的角色：舉例說，在他晚期演奏的拉威爾的《圓舞曲》（La Valse）錄音中，你可以聽到他是如何創造聲音實景的，這一過程正同他先前在斯克裡亞賓前奏曲中把玩麥克風指向性的操作一樣。只是，在拉威爾作品的錄音中並沒有使用先前所說的麥克風把戲，而是他的演奏操縱了這一切。
I find his courage to take a very distinctive path with his interpretations fascinating. And often with wonderful results - particularly in his recordings of 20th-century music. But with all the due respect for the quality of his playing and the poignance of his ideas, I never was a fan of his Bach. As far as I can see, he often regards Bach as abstract material, isolating the music from its historical perspective. But the works were written in a particular period of time, in a limited geographical part of Europe, in a well-defined Protestant view of the world. I have difficulty, too, listening to his readings of Mozart: he deliberately chooses to cross every line in terms of form, structure, harmony and musical language. The price for singularity is too high for my own taste.
我著迷於他在作品演繹中不走尋常路的勇氣。而且總會有些令人驚奇的結果，尤其是在他二十世紀音樂的錄音中表現最為突出。但從他演奏的質量以及觀點的深刻性這兩個關鍵的方面來講，我從來都不是他巴赫作品的粉絲。在我來看，他總是把巴赫的作品當成抽象的素材，把音樂從他的歷史觀中隔絕開來。然而，巴赫作品都是創作在特定時期、歐洲有限的特定地域和明確的新教世界觀中的。我同樣難以接受他演繹的莫扎特：他有意衝破音樂形式、結構、和聲及語言的界限。欣賞他的獨特音樂，未免要付出太多的代價了。
Gould's ideas of sound and interpretation flourish best without going out of context in 20th-century music - Prokofiev, Ravel, but also rarely performed works by Krenek and Strauss. Most composers from this time allow you more freedom to apply your own ideas.
古爾德對音樂的理解和詮釋放在二十世紀音樂中（——普羅科菲耶夫、拉威爾的作品）才有了廣闊的施展空間，以及克熱內克和施特勞斯極少被演奏的作品。這一時期的作品大多賦予了演奏者詮釋個人觀點的極大自由。
· 掃描二維碼打賞譯者 ·
歡迎新成員加入！一起發光發熱！
（如遇掃碼失敗可保存後微信掃一掃）