Jan Lisiecki's guide to Chopin

李谢茨基的《肖邦演奏指南》

By Robert Rowat

In March, Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki released Chopin: Works for Piano & Orchestra, his fourth album for Deutsche Grammophon. It's a collection of lesser-known repertoire, some of it entering the yellow label's catalogue for the first time.

三月（本文写作于2017年），加拿大钢琴家扬·李谢茨基推出了新专辑《肖邦钢琴与乐队作品集》，这是他与德国留声机公司（以下简称“DG公司”）合作推出的第四张专辑。本次收录的均为肖邦鲜为人知的作品，其中部分作品还是DG公司首次出版发行的。

"Even within the music industry, there are people who are only vaguely aware or don’t even know that these works exist," explained Lisiecki during a recent phone conversation with us. "It’s always incredibly rewarding to find music within a very famous composer's repertoire that isn’t known, yet has value, is not second-tier writing — this is still top-class compositional output."

“即使是音乐产业的从业人员也只是模糊地知道这些作品的存在，有的人根本不知道这些作品的存在”，李谢茨基在最近一次电话采访中向我们解释了他出版这张专辑的意图，“在一位著名作曲家的曲目录里发现一些不为人熟悉的作品，这实在是一件让人难以至信而又十分有意义的事情，这些毕竟也是古典音乐界最顶尖的作品”。

The new album was just one highlight of a concert season that also included a European tour with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra — "one of those concerts that stands out even amid a hundred in a year" — in addition to a performance of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 at the opening festival of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.Now 22, Lisiecki is one of today's brightest piano stars.

这张新专辑只是新乐季的其中一个亮点，扬·李谢茨基还将与多伦多交响乐团合作赴欧洲巡演-“是那种能在一年里上百场演出目录里依然引人注目的音乐会”。此外，扬·李谢茨基还将在汉堡的易北爱乐音乐厅开幕音乐会上与指挥家雅尼克·涅杰-瑟贡（Yannick Nézet-Séguin）及鹿特丹爱乐乐团合作肖邦《第一钢琴协奏曲》。现年22岁的李谢茨基是当下乐界最耀眼的钢琴新星之一。

In advance of his busy summer touring schedule, including performances on June 14 and 16 at the Montreal Chamber Music Festival and a whole series of Canadian dates in July, we caught up with Lisiecki for a long discussion, primarily about Chopin, the composer with whom he's most closely associated.Below: Lisiecki's guide to Chopin, in his own words. While not an exhaustive survey, it gives his insights into a range of topics relating to the "poet of the piano."

李谢茨基即将开启他忙碌的夏季巡演计划，其中包括6月14-16日在蒙特利尔室内乐音乐节上的音乐会及在7月的一系列加拿大本土音乐会。我们在乐季开展之前与李谢茨基开展了一次很长的谈话，谈话内容完全围绕肖邦——一位与他本人最紧密联系的作曲家。下面是李谢茨基关于如何演奏肖邦的论述，尽管并不是一份很深入的研究，但基本呈现了李谢茨基关于肖邦作为“钢琴诗人”这一观点的认识。

Polish roots

肖邦的波兰情结

"There’s definitely, undoubtedly a Polish connection in all of Chopin’s music. That’s indisputable. The dances, rhythms, some of the melodies he incorporates — that’s all definitely Polish and I think that speaks to his genius and abilities as a composer.

“毫无疑问，在一切肖邦作品里都能找到与波兰的联系。这是毋庸置疑的，所有的舞曲、节奏以及他创作的一些旋律都富有十分鲜明的波兰风格，我认为，这是肖邦作为一位天才作曲家音乐才华的展现。”

"Growing up, Chopin lived in Warsaw, which at the time wasn’t just a purely Polish city. Poland was occupied so there were a lot of different cultures mingling, even if not in the multicultural sense that we imagine today. And he travelled quite a bit. He lived in France, of course, and in Spain. But one thing to note: his music didn’t markedly change depending on where he lived or travelled at the time. Unlike some other composers, he didn’t incorporate local elements — local themes, local tunes — as much. He stayed really true to his Polish roots.

肖邦是在华沙长大的，在肖邦的年代，华沙并不是一个非常纯正的波兰城市。当时的波兰被占领，有好几种不同的文化在华沙交织，这种交织又不是我们常提到的“多元文化”（multicultural ）的概念。他频繁地旅行，曾在法国和西班牙定居。但是，他的音乐并没有随着他生活环境的改变而改变。与某些作曲家不同，他没有在自己的作品中大量采用旅居国度的本土音乐素材，譬如特有的主题、调性等，他始终忠于他的波兰血统。

"There was always also this longing for Poland and this evocation of the melodies, rhythms and landscapes he remembered. And I think, in a way, when you leave some place, when you haven’t seen somebody [in a long time], you often have a completely different and often more beautiful impression of that place or person. It seems to improve in your mind. So those positive memories that he associated with Poland and his roots — he definitely incorporated all of these things into his music."

“他的作品里总是流露出对故乡波兰的向往之情，还充满了对波兰传统音乐旋律、节奏以及故乡一草一木的追忆。我想，假如你离开某个地方很久了，也未曾见过来自那个地方的人，你对那个地方和人必定换着一个全新的并且是十分美好的印象。这种印象在你脑海里不断加深，所有这些美好的记忆都与肖邦的波兰情结有关系。并且他把一切关于波兰的美好记忆都融入到他的音乐创作中。”

Rubato in Chopin's music

肖邦音乐中的自由节奏

"It's a known fact that Chopin was an opera lover and he enjoyed going to the opera and studying the scores."His melodies were always bel canto. His phrases were so long and there are noticeable breaths and I think that's the most important thing in rubato in Chopin. When people hear rubato they think of this Romanticism, but I think the best way to think of rubato, if you have to compare it to something, is to singing.

“众所周知，肖邦是个戏剧爱好者，十分喜欢去剧院，并且喜欢研究歌剧的总谱。”他的旋律总是充满歌唱性，他的句子很长，有许多明显的呼吸点——我想，这是肖邦作品中使用自由节奏最需要关注的地方。人们听到自由节奏就通常联想到浪漫主义，而我认为，如果要把自由节奏比作什么的话，这应该是歌唱性。

Just like in the moment where you'd have to take a breath, that's often where you need to take time when playing on the piano. And only then does the rubato sound natural, and not something added. And not schmaltzy."One of the more effective ways of [playing] rubato without actually changing time so much is to not play the right and left hands together, as they appear on the score.

就好比，唱歌的时候你必须在某个点换气，而在钢琴上歌唱时，换气就必须占用时间。只有这样做，才能保证自由节奏在作品中运用自然而纯净，避免了无端地增加音乐表情。其中一个能使自由节奏效果良好又不明显改变演奏时间的方式是，不要让左右手完全跟着谱子同时进入拍子。

If you delay an entrance of the right hand after the left in Mozart, it would feel awkward and odd. But in Chopin, if you do this, it heightens tension, it creates different harmonies, it changes some emotion and gives momentum to the phrase, to the line. And that's something that I think is unique to Chopin's music, and I have never really encountered it, or at least [seen it] used so significantly, in other writing."

如果你在演奏莫扎特的作品时故意延迟右手在左手之后才进入拍子就会显得很笨拙、奇怪，但是在肖邦作品中这样做，则可以突出紧张不安的情绪，并且产生出不同的和声效果。这个方法还能改变曲子的情绪，赋予句子和音乐线条律动的能量。我想这是肖邦音乐最独特的地方，在其他作曲家的作品中，我从来没有如此频繁的遇到和使用自由节奏。”

Rewards of playing Chopin

弹奏肖邦的收获

"Everything we've said so far would make it seem like Chopin is incredibly complicated to play [laughs]."[But] Chopin's music is so well written for our instrument, there isn't much that we have to force out of the piano. And I think that one of the reasons that so many pianists like playing Chopin is because it's unique, of course, but it's also rewarding. It feels soothing when you're playing it.

“目前我们谈到的那些可以让肖邦作品听起来更像肖邦的方法，运用在钢琴上都是十分复杂的事情”（李谢茨基大笑）但是肖邦的音乐简直是为现代钢琴量身订做的，弹奏肖邦不需要我们十分用力地压迫钢琴。我想众多钢琴家都热爱演奏肖邦作品是因为他的作品独树一帜。但是弹奏肖邦作品会让你受益良多。肖邦的作品有抚慰人心的力量。

It's not only accuracy, speed or volume; it's more about how you shape the music when you're performing. It's so much fun to be onstage and to be shaping that music, in the moment, with the audience. When you feel that there's a particularly beautiful sound, you can elongate it, you can enjoy it more, you can revel in silences. And that's something that Chopin's music somehow allows you to do."

他作品不仅与准确性、速度或者音响效果这些基本音乐要素有关，更重要的是，当公开演出的时候，你必须能在观众面前构建出作品的形态。能够在舞台上与观众一起构建音乐。这是一件多么有趣的事情。当你感觉到特别动人的声音出现时，你可以主观地延长这个声音来享受它，安静地沉迷其中。某种程度上说，这是肖邦的作品允许我们这样做的。

Nocturnes

肖邦夜曲

"When you hear a Nocturne, the tendency is to associate a 'night' piece with something calming, such as a lullaby. And this is not the case in Chopin's Nocturnes. He uses this as a springboard to have incredible flexibility to write whatever he'd like — in a sense, to write tone poems, to tell some sort of a story.

当你听到一个夜曲的时候，音乐的趋势是让人联想到一个与“深夜”有关的、十分寂静的曲子，就像摇篮曲一样。但这不是肖邦夜曲的特征。他十分弹性地利用“夜曲”这个体裁来写作他想表达的一切，在某种程度上，是在写作音诗，在讲述某个故事。

"Of course, we don't know what he was trying to portray, but there is some vivid imagery in what he writes. Some of them are very peaceful and calm, serene; some are painful, others are quite turbulent, and it's incredible to see how he turns a genre that was essentially non-existent before he started writing it, into something that is important and holds such mass appeal. It's an incredibly powerful vessel for him to communicate.

当然，我们无法知道他真正想表达什么，但是我们能体会到他的笔下有十分生动的形象。有一些音乐形象是和平并安静的场景，一些是痛苦不安的，我们可以看到肖邦如果给一个已有音乐体裁带来让人不可思议的、在之前从未出现过的改变。

"I think his nights were probably more turbulent than we like to think. He was of course sick, he was depressed, and I think he spent lots of sleepless nights. I'm sure he's drawing on personal experience in writing these Nocturnes."

“我想，肖邦夜曲表达的情绪要比我们想象的更痛苦不安，他当然患病了，并且有忧郁症，我想他一定度过了许多不眠之夜，我确信他在写作这些夜曲的时候融入了许多他的个人经历。”

Études

肖邦练习曲

"Chopin was one of the first to make Études something more than just a study to do in your studio when you're practising."Each [Étude] addresses a different [technical] concept, be it playing in thirds or in octaves or performing arpeggios. But of course ...

“肖邦是最早把练习曲这一体裁丰富提升，使练习曲成为不仅供琴房练习的曲子的作曲家之一。每一条肖邦练习曲都围绕某一种技术概念，这可能是关于三度、八度双音的练习，可能是琶音的练习。

we're not playing passage work here, this is Chopin writing these studies, and each one of them has life within it, this sort of secret, extra level that you reach once you've passed the finger challenge and gotten to actually making music out of it. And that's why his Études are special, and why they hold an appeal in the concert hall, and not only in the practice studio.

然而，我们不是在做普通的技术训练，肖邦写这些练习曲，每一条都赋予了它们生命力。这是在你手指已经战胜一切技术困难以后，要达到的一个更高的、更神秘的水平，你必须在练习曲中创造音乐。这就是为什么肖邦的练习曲是独特的，为什么他的练习曲不仅在琴房里被追捧，更是在演奏厅里频繁上演。

"All Chopin's works ... have some sort of storyline and structure, and it's harder to find in the smaller pieces. You have less time — and this is one of the challenges of playing, for example, the Préludes or the Études — you don't have this buffer zone to get the audience in with you;

所有的肖邦作品，都有一条故事线索和结构上的东西，但是在他的小型作品里相对更难找到这个线索和结构。你的时间有限，这是弹奏肖邦的，譬如前奏曲或者练习曲这些小篇幅作品的其中一个挑战。你缺乏一个渐进空间来吸引观众逐步跟随你的思路。

you don't often have an exposition, development and recapitulation to grow on the vein of the same concept. You have to take them in from the first note and tell everything that there is to be said the first time. You don't have a second chance.

这类曲子缺乏一般曲子具备的呈现部、发展部和再现部，你缺乏空间去把你对曲子的理解脉络清晰地表现出来。你在第一个音符下键的那一刻就必须开门见山地把你想说的一切表达出来，因为你不会再有第二遍的机会了。

"For example, in the first Scherzo, you have a lot of chances to say the same thing, the same in the concertos. There's the opportunity to change things the second time you play them. Yes, a concerto is 30 minutes of music, and one opus of Études is 30 minutes of music.

“打个比方，在肖邦《一号谐谑曲》中，你有许多机会重复表述同一样东西，在各种钢琴协奏曲中也有类似的情况。这样在第二遍再现同一个片段的时候你就有机会作出改变。是的，一个钢琴协奏曲有30分钟的时长，整套肖邦练习曲也才30分钟的时长，但是相比学习一个钢琴协奏曲，学弹整套肖邦练习曲显然是一项更繁重的工作。

But learning one opus of Études is an incomparably larger feat than playing one of the concertos because every single piece is individual, there are 12 of them [and] each one has something separate that you have to learn and to figure out, mentally, psychologically — [it's of] much greater scope than one monolithic sonata of any composer."

因为每一条练习曲都是第一无二的，一共有12条，每一条都包含了一些独特的东西你必须花费功夫专门思考研究并且反复练习。显然，即使与任何一位作曲家的一整部奏鸣曲相比较，完整学习肖邦整套练习曲依然是一项规模大得多的工作。

Concertos

肖邦的钢琴协奏曲

"It's not audience members who find [Chopin's piano concertos] lacking, it's usually other musicians who criticize how Chopin wrote for the orchestra, and how he used the instruments."There's lots of opinion on whether he actually orchestrated them himself, or if somebody else did. One thing we know for certain: it's his music for the piano, and it's as individual as everything else he wrote for the instrument.

通常，不是听众群体挑剔肖邦的钢琴协奏曲，而是一些音乐家批评肖邦为乐队写作的手法，及他使用乐器的方法。肖邦有没有亲自指挥出演过自己的钢琴协奏曲，又有没有其他人曾这样做，在这个问题上有许多不同的观点。但是有一样我们可以确定，他为钢琴所写的音乐，与他写的其他所有钢琴曲一样独一无二。

The orchestra, to me, should be treated more like an extra layer of sound — something that isn't found in any of Chopin's other writing. When the strings, for example, have long notes (which they don't like to play of course because it's strenuous and boring), it creates this palette of colours on which I can draw when I'm playing on the piano.

至于乐队部分，我理解的，应该视作声音的另外一个层面——在肖邦写的其他作品里都没有。譬如，弦乐部分有一长串的音符（乐手们肯定不喜欢，因为这个长句子既费劲又沉闷），但是它发挥了调色板的功能，我演奏钢琴的时候就可以借用这个调色板来创造音乐色彩。

[And] when there's a dialogue with one instrument, then we have to go back and remember that Chopin wrote for the piano at a time when it was a much smaller and weaker instrument and he played only in very small rooms, not really in large concert halls, so there has to be an effort to ensure that the melodies that are important in the orchestra come out and aren't covered up by the piano and the soloist."

当来到那些钢琴与另外一个乐器对话的片段，我们则必须记住一条原则——肖邦时代使用的钢琴要比我们这个时代使用的钢琴体积小很多，音量也弱很多。并且，他一般只在一些小房间里弹奏他的钢琴，很少在真正在演奏厅里演奏，因此必须保证做到乐队部分的旋律凸显出来，而不被钢琴和独奏的声音所覆盖。

The pianos of Chopin's day

肖邦时代的钢琴

"I have tried historic instruments, and to be perfectly honest, and from my viewpoint, I'm happy with where our instrument is now. It has most certainly improved."It would be like saying to actually know how to drive, you have to go and drive a Ford Model T, because that was the first mass-produced car. We've improved the car, so why would we go back to something that was worse?

“我尝试使用过古钢琴，坦白地说，我更喜欢现在我们的钢琴，相较古钢琴，实在进步太多了。就好比说，你要学开车，然后你跑去试驾一辆福特T型车——因为这是世界上第一款批量生产的小汽车，我们已经大大改进了汽车了，为什么还要回到过去开一辆不如当下的汽车？”

"Yes, there's something to be said [for historical instruments]: the sound was different, there was less metal used and there was less tension in the strings. I think it's hard also to tell exactly how Chopin's instrument sounded at that time because all the ones that we have are older, and even if they've been well maintained, you never really know exactly. 'Was it exactly this way? How was it tuned? How were the hammers shaped? How was it voiced? What was the idea behind it?'

“当然，古钢琴的声音还是不一样的，它有自己独特的地方，古钢琴使用相对较少金属，弦也相对松弛。我想，很难用语言阐述清楚那个时代肖邦的钢琴发出怎样的声音，因为这些钢琴保存至今已经很老了，即使它们被保存完好，我们也很难知道它们在当时是否就是现在这个样子，它们的弹奏方法是什么，它们的榔头是怎样的形状，它们会发出怎样的声音，它们是基于一个怎样的理念被创造发明出来？”

"That being said, there are certain things that I understood better when I played on an old instrument. Some of the Études, for example, are vastly easier on the old instrument than they are today. It's well known that the Études, some amongst them, are almost impossible to play [on a modern instrument] and on that piano, they were still challenging, but they were not as hard. The action is lighter, it's not as deep.

“话虽如此，但当我使用古钢琴弹奏的时候，就某个问题上我获得了更深入的认识。譬如说，使用古钢琴演奏某几条练习曲，比使用现代钢琴容易得多。众所周知，有那么几条肖邦练习曲在现代钢琴上几乎很难完成，即使用古钢琴也极具挑战性，但是由于古钢琴的击弦机更轻，琴键也没那么深，所以用古钢琴来弹要相对容易一些”

"But there's also way less possibility, actually, because you don't have this volume range. And volume is one of the biggest gifts that we have in the [modern] piano. The tendency and the easy way is to go to the extreme, which is usually the loud extreme of the volume range. But the piano also permits incredibly beautiful and round and long-lasting sound at a very quiet volume, and that is one of the nice changes ... between the old and the new."Chopin's last piano made by the Pleyel company (No. 14,810) displayed in the Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw.

“但是，总体来说，在古钢琴上强弱变换的空间相对较小，因为它缺乏足够宽广的音量范围，宽广的音量范围是现代钢琴赠予我们最重要的礼物之一，使用现代钢琴的音乐趋势是很容易就去到音量的极端，一般是强音的极端，同时，现代钢琴还能够使在弱音的基础上产生不可思议般美丽、圆润且持久的声音成为可能。这真是从古钢琴到现代钢琴的一个极好的改变。”肖邦的最后一台钢琴是由普莱尔钢琴公司生产的第14，810号钢琴，目前展放在华沙的肖邦博物馆。

Cello Sonata

肖邦的大提琴奏鸣曲

"[In addition to the piano music], Chopin also wrote songs for voice and an incredible cello sonata. It's pretty much a piano sonata with a very difficult cello part. It's a vigorous and involving work. And it's Op. 65, so this is one of the last things Chopin wrote, and it holds this wisdom and this gravity somehow, and it's a rewarding experience to perform it."

除了钢琴音乐，肖邦还创作了一些声乐作品和一首十分精美的大提琴奏鸣曲。这实际上是一个包含了大提琴部分的钢琴奏鸣曲，这是一部充满激情、使人陶醉的作品，它的作品号是Op.65，因此是肖邦最后创作的几部作品之一，在某种程度上体现了肖邦创作最后的智慧与吸引力，演奏这个作品将会是一个很宝贵的经历。