1. We all listen to music according to our separate capacities. But, for the sake of analysis, the whole listening process may become dearer if we break it up into its component parts, so to speak. In a certain sense we all listen to music on three separate planes. For lack of a better terminology, one might name these: (1) the sensuous plane, (2) the expressive plane, (3) the sheerly musical plane. The only advantage to be gained from mechanically splitting up the listening process into these hypothetical planes is the clearer view to be had of the way in which we listen.
我们都根据各自不同的能力听音乐。但为了便于分析，如果把听音乐的过程分成姑妄称之为其构成部分，那么就可以说得清楚一些。从某种意义上说来，我们都在三个不同的层次上听音乐，因为缺少更确切的词汇，姑且称之为：1)美感层次，2)表现层次，3)纯音乐层次。 将听音乐的过程机械地分成这些假设的层次能得到的唯一好处是可以对我们听的方式有个较清楚的观察。
2. The simplest way of listening to music is to listen for the sheer pleasure of the musical sound itself. That is the sensuous plane. It is the plane on which we hear music without thinking, without considering it in any way. One turns on the radio while doing something else and absentmindedly bathes in the sound. A kind of brainless but attractive state of mind is engendered by the mere sound appeal of the music.
听音乐最简单的方式就是从乐声本身中获取纯粹的美的享受，这就是美感层次。在这个层次上我们听音乐时不动脑筋，不在任何方面去进行思考。我们一面做着什么事，一面打开收音机，心不在焉地沉浸在乐声之中。单纯是音乐的感染力造成了一种无思维的然而是极有吸引力的心境。
3. You may be sitting in a room reading this book. Imagine one note struck on the piano. Immediately that one note is enough to change the atmosphere of the room ––proving that the sound element in music is a powerful and mysterious agent, which it would be foolish to deride or belittle.
你也许正坐在一个房间里读着这本书。想像一下在钢琴上奏出了一个音符。这一个音符便足以立刻改变房间里的气氛—证明了音乐中声的因素是个有力而神秘的作用力量，嘲笑或贬低它都是愚蠢的。
4. The surprising thing is that many people who consider themselves qualified music lovers abuse that plane in listening. They go to concerts in order to lose themselves. They use music as a consolation or an escape. They enter an ideal worm where one doesn’t have to think of the realities of everyday life. Of course they aren’t thinking about the music either. Music allows them to leave it, and they go off to a place to dream, dreaming because of and apropos of the music yet never quite listening to it.
令人惊奇的是，许多自认
为是合格的音乐爱好者的人在听音乐时却错误地利用了这个层次，他们到音乐会去是为了自我忘却，他们利用音乐求得安慰或逃避现实。他们进入了一个理想的世界，在那儿人们不必去考虑生活中的现实。当然他们也没有在考虑音乐。音乐使他们得以脱离生活中的现实，他们到另一个所在去梦想，他们由于有了音乐而梦想，随着音乐而梦想，但却从来不真正在听音乐。
5. Yes, the sound appeal of music is a potent and primitive force, but you must not allow it to usurp a disproportionate share of your interest. The sensuous plane is an important one in music, a very important one, but it does not constitute the whole story.
是的，音乐之声的吸引力是一个强大的原始的力量，但你不应让它过多地占据你的兴趣。美感层次是音乐中一个重要的层次，一个十分重要的层次，但它并不是一切。
6. There is no need to digress further on the sensuous plane. Its appeal to every normal human being is self-evident. There is, however, such a thing as becoming more sensitive to the different kinds of sound stuff as used by various composers. For all composers do not use that sound stuff in the same way. Don’t get the idea that the value of music is commensurate with its sensuous appeal or that the loveliest sounding music is made by the greatest composer. If that were so, Ravel would be a greater creator than Beethoven. The point is that the sound element varies with each composer, that his usage of sound forms an integral part of his style and must be taken into account when listening. The reader can see, therefore, that a more conscious approach is valuable even on this primary plane of music listening.
没有必要更多地扯到美感层次上去了。它对每一个正常人的吸引力是不言而喻的。不过还有一个对不同的作曲家使用的不同类型的音的素材变得更为敏感的问题，因为不是所有的作曲家都以同样的方式使用音的素材。不要以为音乐的价值与其美的感染力相等，或以为最动听的音乐出自最伟大的作曲家之手。如果真是这样，那么拉韦尔就会是比贝多芬更伟大的创造者了。关键是，声这一因素随每个作曲家而异，作曲家对声的使用构成了他风格的不可缺少的重要部分，必须在听时考虑在内。因此读者可以看到，即使在听音乐的这一初级阶段，一种更为自觉的态度也是有其价值的。
7. The second plane on which music exists is what I have called the expressive one. Here, immediately, we tread on controversial ground. Composers have a way of shying away from any discussion of music's expressive side. Did not Stravinsky himself proclaim that his music was an “object,” a “thing,” with a life of its own, and with no other meaning than its own purely musical existence? This intransigen
t attitude of Stravinsky’s may be due to the fact that so many people have tried to read different meanings into so many pieces. Heaven knows it is difficult enough to say precisely what it is that a piece of music means, to say it definitely, to say it finally so that everyone is satisfied with your explanation. But that should not lead one to the other extreme of denying to music the right to be “expressive.”
音乐存在的第二个层次是我称之为表现层次的。一提到此，我们便立即进入了引起争论的领域。作曲家们有避开任何对音乐的表现性方面的讨论的习惯，斯特拉温斯基本人不就声明他的音乐是一个“物体”，一样“东西”，有自己的生命，除了自己纯粹的音乐的存在以外，没有任何别的含义吗? 斯特拉温斯基的这一强硬态度可能是由于这个事实而生的：有这样多的人试图把不同的含义塞进对这样多的乐曲的理解中去。老天知道，要确切说出一件音乐作品的意思是什么，肯定地、决定性地说出其意思，使每个人都对你的解释满意，要这样做是够难的。但不应该因此而走入另一极端，否认音乐具有“表现性”的权利。
8. My own belief is that all music has an expressive power, some more and some less, but that all music has a certain meaning behind the notes and that that meaning behind the notes constitutes, after all, what the piece is saying, what the piece is about. This whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, “Is there a meaning to music?” My answer to that would he, “yes.” And “Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?” My answer to that would be. “No.” Therein lies the difficulty.
我个人相信，一切音乐均具有表现能力，有的大些，有的小些，但在一切音乐的音符背后都有某种意思，归根结底音符背后的意思构成了整个乐曲表达的内容：它说些什么，是关于什么的。整个问题可以很简单的通过提问来表明：“音乐有没有什么含义”? 我的回答会是“有的。” 进而再问， “你能用明确的语言说出其含义吗?” 对此我的回答则会是， “不能。”这就是困难之所在。
9. Simple-minded souls will never be satisfied with the answer to the second of these questions. They always want to have a meaning, and the more concrete it is the better they like it. The more the music reminds them of a train, a storm, a funeral, or any other familiar conception the more expressive it appears to be to them. This popular idea of music’s meaning – stimulated and a- betted by the usual run of musical commentator – should be discouraged wherever and whenever it is met. One timid lady once confessed to me that she suspected something seriously lacking in her appreciation of music because of her inability to connect it with anything definite. That is getting the whole thing backwar
d, of course.
头脑单纯的人们永远不会满足于对第二个问题的回答。他们永远希望知道其含义，而且是越具体他们越喜欢。音乐越是能使他们想起火车、暴风雨、敬礼，或别的熟悉的印象，对他们就显得越有表现性。这一对音乐含义的常见看法—受到平庸的音乐评论员的推动与鼓励—不论何时何地，只要遇到就应去消除。有位怯生生的女士一次向我承认，她怀疑自己在音乐欣赏上存在着某种严重的不足，因为她不能将音乐与任何确切的东西联系起来。当然，她这是本末倒置了。
10. Still, the question remains. How close should the intelligent music lover wish to come to pinning a definite meaning to any particular work? No closer than a general concept I should say. Music expresses, at different moments, serenity or exuberance, regret or triumph, fury or delight. It expresses each of these moods, and many others, in a numberless variety of subtle shadings and differences. It may even express a state of meaning for which there exists no adequate word in any language. In that case, musicians often like to say that it has only a purely musical meaning. They some- times go farther and say that all music has only a purely musical meaning. What they really mean is that no appropriate word can be found to express the music' s meaning they do not feel the need of finding it that, even if it could.
尽管如此，问题仍然存在着。一个有头脑的音乐爱好者究竟应希望就某一音乐作品的确切含义具体指明到什么程度? 我想不超过指出一个一般的概念。音乐在不同的时刻表现出宁静或欢快，悔恨或得意，狂怒或欣喜。它以无数程度与差异上的微妙变化表现了上述每一种心情以及许多其它的心情，它甚至还能表现任何语言中都没有恰当的字眼儿能表现出的一种意境。在这种情况下，音乐家们常爱说它只有纯粹的音乐上的含义。有时他们走得更远，说所有的音乐都只有纯粹的音乐上的含义。他们的真正意思是，无法找到恰当的字眼儿来表达音乐的含义，而且，即使有这样的字眼儿，他们也不觉得有去找的必要。
11. But whatever the professional musician may hold, most musical novices still search for specific words with which to pin down their musical reactions. That is why they always find Tschaikovsky easier to “understand” than Beethoven. In the first place, it is easier to pin a meaning-word on a Tschaikovsky piece than on a Beethoven one. Much easier. Moreover, with the Russian composer, every time you come back to a piece of his it almost always says the same thing to you, whereas with Beethoven it is often quite difficult to put your finger right on what he is saying. And any musician will tell you that that is why Beethoven is the greater composer. Because music which always says the same thing
to you will necessarily soon become dull music, but music whose meaning is slightly different with each hearing has a greater chance of remaining alive.
但不管专业的音乐家们怎么认为，大多数无经验的音乐爱好者仍在寻找能明确说明他们对音乐的反应的具体字眼儿。这就是为什么他们总觉得柴可夫斯基比贝多芬容易“理解”。首先，要找一个表达意思的字眼儿来说明柴可夫斯基的作品比说明贝多芬的容易。容易得多。况且，这位俄国作曲家的作品，你每次重新听时它所表达的东西几乎总是一样的，而贝多芬的作品则常常很难确切指出它表达的是什么。任何一位音乐家都会告诉你这就是为什么贝多芬比柴可夫斯基伟大。因为总是向你表达同样东西的音乐必然很快会变得单调，而每听一次其含义都有一些不同的音乐会有更多的机会保持其活力。
12. Listen, if you can, to the forty-eight fugue themes of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavichord. Listen to each theme, one after another. You will soon realize that each theme mirrors a different world of feeling. You will also soon realize that the more beautiful a theme seems to you the harder it is to find any word that will describe it to your complete satisfaction. Yes, you will certainly know whether it is a gay theme or a sad one. You will be able, in other words, in your own mind, to draw a frame of emotional feeling around your theme. Now study the sad one a little closer. Try to pin down the exact quality of its sadness. Is it pessimistically sad or resignedly sad; is it fatefully sad or smilingly sad?
如有可能，你去听一听巴赫的十二平均律钢琴曲集中 48首赋格曲的主旋律。你听每一个主旋律，一个挨一个地听，很快你就会发现每一个主旋律反映了一个不同的感情世界。你还会很快发现，你越觉得美的主旋律，就越难找到任何能使你完全满意地对它做出形容的字眼儿。是的，你当然会知道这主旋律是欢快的还是哀伤的，换句话说，你在自己心里会能够对所听的主旋律划出一个感情体会的框架。你这时再稍微仔细地研究一下这哀伤的主旋律，尽量设法指明其哀伤的确切性质，是悲观的哀伤还是与世无争的哀伤，是听天由命的哀伤还是苦甜参半的哀伤?
13. Let us suppose that you are fortunate and can describe to your own satisfaction in so many words the exact meaning of your chosen theme. There is still no guarantee that anyone else will be satisfied. Nor need they be. The important thing is that each one feel for himself the specific expressive quality of a theme or, similarly, an entire piece of music. And if it is a great work of art, don't expect street listens to the “notes themselves” it to mean exactly the same thing to you each time you return to it.
让我们假设你很幸运，能令你自己满
意地明确地说出你挑选的一个主旋律的确切含义，但仍然不能保证别人也会满意。他们也没有必要满意。重要的是各人自己去感受某一主旋律特有的表现性，或同样地去感受整个一部音乐作品。如果是一部巨作，那么就不要企望它在每次听时都给你完全相同的感受。
14. Themes or pieces need not express only one emotion, of course. Take such a theme as the first main one of the Ninth Symphony, for example. It is clearly made up of different elements. It does not say only one thing. Yet anyone hearing it immediately gets a feeling of strength, a feeling of power. It isn't a power that comes simply because the theme is played loudly. It is a power inherent in the theme itself. The extraordinary strength and vigor of the theme results in the listener’s receiving an impression that a forceful statement has been made. But one should never try to boil it down to “the fateful hammer of life,’ etc. That is where the trouble begins. The musician, in his exasperation, says it means nothing but the notes themselves, whereas the nonprofessional is only too anxious to hang on to any explanation that gives him the illusion of getting closer to the music’s meaning.
主旋律或乐曲当然不必只表现一种感情。以第九交响乐的第一主旋律为例，它显然由不同成分构成，并不只表现一个意思。但任何人听到它时会立即感受到一种力量，一种威力。并不只是因为演奏这一主旋律的声音响亮就产生了这种威力，这是这一主旋律本身内在的威力，它非凡的力量与气质来自聆听者感受到音乐发出了强有力的声明，但人们永远也不应试图去将此归纳为“命运之锤”等等。问题就出在这里，音乐家恼怒之下声称除了音符本身它什么含义也没有，而非科班的人却急切地想抓住任何能使他自以为更接近了音乐的含义的解释。
15. Now, perhaps, the reader will know better what I mean when I say that music does have an expressive meaning but that we cannot say in so many words what that meaning is.
也许现在读者更明白我这样说的意思了：音乐确实存在要表现的含义，但我们却无法确切说出那含义究竟是什么。
16. The third plane on which music exists is the sheerly musical plane. Besides the pleasurable sound of music and the expressive feeling that it gives off, music does exist in terms of the notes themselves and of their manipulation. Most listeners are not sufficiently conscious of this third plane.
音乐存在的第三个层次是纯音乐层次。音乐除了发出悦耳的乐声及表现感外，它确实还存在于音符形式本身及对音符的处理中。多数听众并没有充分地意识到这第三层次。
17. Professional musicians, on the other hand, are, if anything, too conscious of the mere notes themselves. They often fall into the e
rror of becoming so engrossed with their arpeggios and staccatos that they forget the deeper aspects of the music they are performing. But from the layman’s standpoint, it is not so much a matter of getting over bad habits on the sheerly musical plane as of increasing one' s awareness of what is going on, in so far as the notes are concerned
但另一方面，专业音乐家恐怕是纯音符意识太强了。他们往往会陷入过分沉溺于自己的琶音及断奏而忘记了他们演奏的音乐的深层方面的错误之中。但从外行的标准而言，那就不是一个克服在纯音乐层次上的坏习惯的问题，而是对有关音符方面的进展增强意识的问题。
18. When the man with any degree of concentration, he is most likely to make some mention of the melody. Either he hears a pretty melody or he does not, and he generally lets it go at that. Rhythm is likely to gain his attention next, particularly if it seems exciting. But harmony and tone color are generally taken for granted, if they are thought of consciously at all. As for music’s having a definite form of some kind, that idea seems never to have occurred to him.
当普通老百姓稍注意听“音符本身”时，他很可能会提到曲调。他要么就是听到了动听的曲调，要么就是没有，而一般说来他也就不再多想了。下一个吸引他注意的可能是节奏，特别是如果节奏显得很热烈的话。但是如果他还有意识地考虑和弦和音色的话，一般说来也认为这是当然应有的东西。至于说音乐还有某种确定的曲式，他似乎从来也没有想到过这一层。
19. It is very important for all of us to become more alive to music on its sheerly musical plane. After all, an actual musical material is being used. The intelligent listener must be prepared to increase his awareness of the musical material and what happens to it. He must hear the melodies, the rhythms, the harmonies, the tone colors in a more conscious fashion. But above all he must, in order to follow the line of the composer's thought, know something of the principles of musical form. Listening to all of these elements is listening on the sheerly musical plane.
我们大家对音乐的纯音乐层次变得更为敏感些，这一点非常重要。毕竟使用的是实际的音乐素材。有头脑的听众必须有这样的准备，要加强自己对音乐素材及其变化情况的认识，他必须更自觉地去听那曲调、节奏、和弦、音色。但为了跟上作曲家的思路，他尤其必须对音乐曲式的原理有一些了解。倾听所有这些成分便是在纯音乐层次上听音乐。
20. Let me repeat that I have split up mechanically the three separate planes on which we listen merely for the sake of greater clarity. Actually, we never listen to one or the other of these planes. What we do is to correlate them – listening in all three ways at the same time. It
takes no mental effort, for we do it instinctively.
让我再重复一遍，我将听音乐的过程机械地分成了三个独立的层次，目的只是为了看得更清楚一些。实际上，我们从来不只听其中一个层次。我们的作法是将它们联系起来—同时三个方面都听。这并不需要在思想上做出特殊的努力，因为我们本能地就会这样去做。
21. Perhaps an analogy with what happens to us when we visit the theater will make this instinctive correlation clearer. In the theater, you are aware of the actors and actresses, costumes and sets, sounds and movements. All these give one the sense that the theater is a pleasant place to be in. They constitute the sensuous plane in our theatrical reactions.
也许将此与我们看戏时的情况相比可以把这种本能的联系说得更清楚些。在剧院里，你意识到有男女演员、服装布景、音响动作。这一切使你感到剧院是个令人愉快的地方。这些构成了我们在美感层次上对戏剧的反应。
22. The expressive plane in the theater would be derived from the feeling that you get from what is happening on the stage. You are moved to pity, excitement, or gaiety. It is this general feeling, generated aside from the particular words being spoken, a certain emotional something which exists on the stage, that is analogous to the expressive quality in music.
戏剧的表现层次是从你对舞台上发生的一切的感受中得到的。它引起了你的同情、激动或欢乐。就是这种存在于舞台上的、并非来自具体的台词的笼统的感觉，某种感情上的东西和音乐的表现性是类同的。
23. The plot and plot development is equivalent to our sheerly musical plane. The playwright creates and develops a character in just the same way that a composer creates and develops a theme. According to the degree of your awareness of the way in which the artist in either field handles his material will you become a more intelligent listener.
情节与情节的发展相当于我们的纯音乐层次。剧作家创造和发展一个人物所用的方式与作曲家创造和发展一个主旋律的方式是一样的。根据你对这两个领域中艺术家各自处理自己素材的方法的理解程度，你才会成为更有头脑的欣赏者。
24. It is easy enough to see that the theatergoer never is conscious of any of these elements separately. He is aware of them all at the same time. The same is true of music listening. We simultaneously and without thinking listen on all three planes..
很容易看出，看戏的人从不单独地意识到这些因素中的任何一个，而是同时意识到它们，听音乐也是如此。我们同时不假思索地在全部三个层次上听音乐。
25. In a sense, the ideal listener is both inside and outside the music at the same moment, judging it and enjoying it, wishing it would go one way an
d watching it go another – almost like the composer at the moment he composes it; because in order to write his music, the composer must also be inside and outside his music, carried away by it and yet coldly critical of it. A subjective and objective attitude is implied in both creating and listening to music.
从某个意义上来说，理想的听众在同一时刻应既在音乐之中又在音乐之外，既评价之又欣赏之，希望它向某一方向发展而又眼看它向另一方向走去—几乎像作曲家在创作的时刻一样。因为为了创作，作曲家也必须既在他所谱写的音乐之中又在它之外，音乐使他失去自制但他却又要对之持冷静的批判态度。在创作音乐和欣赏音乐时都包含了主观与客观两种态度。
26. What the reader should strive for, then, is a more active kind of listening. Whether you listen to Mozart or Duke Ellington, you can deepen your understanding of music only by being a more con- scious and aware listener – not someone who is just listening, but someone who is listening for something.
因而读者应争取的是一种更为主动的欣赏。不论是在听莫扎特还是听杜克·埃林顿，只有成为更自觉、更有意识的听众，不是一个单单在听着音乐的人，而是一个注意聆听着音乐中存在着的什么的人，你才能加深自己对音乐的理解。