Glenn Gould, the Artist and the Industry
鋼琴家顧爾德與他的相關產業
By Bernard Holland
When Glenn Gould died in 1982, a victim of a stroke at the unseemly age of 50, his red-hot reputation had calmed to a simmer. Gould, a sufferer from extreme stage fright but a winner in the stock market, had quit performing in public 18 years earlier, using the proceeds of his financial ventures to soften the burdens of early retirement. Much of his time later was spent with television projects in his native Toronto.
葛倫‧顧爾德1982年50歲死於中風時，他當紅時期如日中天的名氣已冷落。有嚴重舞台恐懼症的顧爾德是股市大贏家，在去世之前18年就不再公開演出，用他金融投資的獲利減輕提早退休的負擔。他退休後大部分時間都花在家鄉多倫多的電視節目上。
In death, Gould came to life. Music business operatives appeared suddenly and in hordes, claiming hitherto unnoticed intimacy with the great pianist and eager to share their experiences.
顧爾德死後又活躍起來。音樂事業經營者成群結隊出現，宣稱和這位偉大的鋼琴家有迄今仍不為人知的交情，並渴望與人分享他們的經驗。
Maybe they belonged to the tens of thousands who were present at the infamous premiere of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” or the opening night of “My Fair Lady.” The less privileged had to fall back on the newly spruced-up Gould recordings rushed into re-release.
也許他們是惡名昭彰的史特拉汶斯基「春之祭」首演或「窈窕淑女」首演夜的幾萬名觀眾之一。比較沒有特權的則要靠一窩蜂重新發行的全新包裝顧爾德唱片。
Brisk business was done over his body, and it hasn’t stopped yet. A cleaned-up version of his career-making 1955 recording of Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations appeared this year and is now prominently on sale. Just recently I received a published photo album filled with childhood memorabilia. What’s next: the Glenn Gould coloring book?
大賺顧爾德死人錢的生意興隆，而且沒有停止跡象。顧爾德1955年錄製的成名作—巴赫的「郭德堡」變奏曲整理版今年出現在市場上，現在擺在顯眼的銷售位置。最近我還收到一本印刷的照片簿，裡面滿是顧爾德的童年記事。接下來是什麼：顧爾德的塗色本？
No one before or since has had the dexterity to make such transparent child’s play of Bach’s severest contrapuntal puzzles. That he played these pieces at such blinding speeds was not necessarily because he should have; I think he just wanted us to know that he could. To his great credit, Gould’s playing never complicated the simple. It is easy to decorate naked melody, extraordinarily difficult to keep its simplicity intact.
顧爾德把巴赫最嚴格的對位演奏得如此純真，他的純熟技巧空前絕後。他以令人眼花撩亂的速度彈奏這些曲子，未必因為他必須如此；我認為他只是要我們知道他做得到。顧爾德最值得讚賞的，是他的演奏從未把簡單的曲子複雜化。要裝飾無修飾的旋律很容易，要完全保持它的簡單卻極困難。
In the “serious” music usually associated with him – Bach, Beethoven and Mozart – Gould was happy to visit outrage on received wisdom. Yet he played Grieg and Brahms with docile acceptance of tradition.
在演奏經常和顧爾德連在一起的「嚴肅」音樂時，像是巴赫、貝多芬和莫札特，他樂於顛覆公認的技法。但他演奏葛利格和布拉姆斯時，則溫順地接受傳統。
Tales of his personal oddities were a thriving spinoff industry. There was Gould bundled up for blizzard conditions in tropical summer heat. His inhibitions about touching or being touched in later years limited human contact.
有關他個人怪癖的軼事是極有賣點的衍生產業。他曾在熱帶夏天高溫下，把自己包得像在大風雪天一般。他生前最後幾年避免觸碰他人或被觸碰，限制了他與人的接觸。
The Gould legacy is of great value if we put it in the right place. He is the most interesting Bach player in memory, but when taken as a model of how Bach should sound, he is a catastrophe.
我們若把顧爾德留給後世的遺產放在正確位置，它有極高價值。他是記憶中演奏巴赫最有趣的演奏家，但把他當成巴赫音樂應該如何的典範，他是個大災難。
With Angela Hewitt’s recent presentation of Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier” at Zankel Hall still in the ears, I have been going back to the Gould recordings of these preludes and fugues on Sony Classical. At a number of moments, Bach is brilliantly served. Gould’s intelligent use of astonishing muscular control in the C sharp and E flat fugues of Book 1 gives separate personalities to two and three voices in simultaneous conversation, this on a modern piano constructed to make individual notes sound uniform rather than distinctive.
安琪拉‧休伊特最近在卡內基音樂廳內桑凱爾廳演奏的巴赫平均律鋼琴曲仍在耳邊繚繞，我已回頭聽新力古典樂輯中顧爾德的這些前奏曲和賦格曲。在某些時候，他把巴赫詮釋得極巧妙。在平均律鋼琴曲第一冊的升C調和降E調賦格曲中，顧爾德聰明地利用驚人的肌肉掌控，賦予同時對話的兩三個聲音不同的個性，他是在現代鋼琴上演奏，而現代鋼琴的建構是讓個別音符聽起來統一，不是有區別性。
There are similar if occasional satisfactions. The rest is a series of assaults. They behave like satires, discreet lampoons of how everybody but Glenn Gould plays Bach. You hear a brilliant adolescent insulting his elders.
演奏中有類似的滿足，就算只是偶爾出現。其餘則是一連串攻擊，作風像諷刺作品，謹慎的諷刺顧爾德以外的人如何演奏巴赫。你聽到一個聰明的青少年汙辱他的長輩。
Gould’s concepts can be horrifying, like ice water thrown in the face, but they are always fascinating. The famous C major Prelude of Book 1 makes a simple request for flowing arpeggios; Gould chops the phrases into half-legato, half-staccato. The C sharp Prelude and E minor Fugue from Book 1 are made ridiculously fast, and these are just two examples of show-off acceleration.
顧爾德的觀念十分駭人，像冰水潑在臉上，但總是令人著迷。第一冊中著名的降C大調前奏曲簡單的要求流動的琶音；顧爾德把樂句切成半連奏、半斷奏。第一冊的升C調前奏曲和E小調賦格曲以快得離譜的速度彈奏，這只是炫耀加速度的兩個例子。
Revolutionaries get our attention, and often for the better, but whom would you want running New York City, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg or Che Guevara? But keep the Gould recordings close by; they keep us stirred up. No matter how you do it, he said, I’ll do it differently.
革命家引起我們注意，而且經常是為了變得更好，但你希望誰來治理紐約市，是彭博還是切‧格瓦拉？但請把顧爾德的唱片放在身邊；這些音樂讓我們熱血沸騰。他說，不管你怎麼演奏，我都會用不同的方式來演奏。
鋼琴家顧爾德與他的相關產業
By Bernard Holland
When Glenn Gould died in 1982, a victim of a stroke at the unseemly age of 50, his red-hot reputation had calmed to a simmer. Gould, a sufferer from extreme stage fright but a winner in the stock market, had quit performing in public 18 years earlier, using the proceeds of his financial ventures to soften the burdens of early retirement. Much of his time later was spent with television projects in his native Toronto.
葛倫‧顧爾德1982年50歲死於中風時，他當紅時期如日中天的名氣已冷落。有嚴重舞台恐懼症的顧爾德是股市大贏家，在去世之前18年就不再公開演出，用他金融投資的獲利減輕提早退休的負擔。他退休後大部分時間都花在家鄉多倫多的電視節目上。
In death, Gould came to life. Music business operatives appeared suddenly and in hordes, claiming hitherto unnoticed intimacy with the great pianist and eager to share their experiences.
顧爾德死後又活躍起來。音樂事業經營者成群結隊出現，宣稱和這位偉大的鋼琴家有迄今仍不為人知的交情，並渴望與人分享他們的經驗。
Maybe they belonged to the tens of thousands who were present at the infamous premiere of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” or the opening night of “My Fair Lady.” The less privileged had to fall back on the newly spruced-up Gould recordings rushed into re-release.
也許他們是惡名昭彰的史特拉汶斯基「春之祭」首演或「窈窕淑女」首演夜的幾萬名觀眾之一。比較沒有特權的則要靠一窩蜂重新發行的全新包裝顧爾德唱片。
Brisk business was done over his body, and it hasn’t stopped yet. A cleaned-up version of his career-making 1955 recording of Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations appeared this year and is now prominently on sale. Just recently I received a published photo album filled with childhood memorabilia. What’s next: the Glenn Gould coloring book?
大賺顧爾德死人錢的生意興隆，而且沒有停止跡象。顧爾德1955年錄製的成名作—巴赫的「郭德堡」變奏曲整理版今年出現在市場上，現在擺在顯眼的銷售位置。最近我還收到一本印刷的照片簿，裡面滿是顧爾德的童年記事。接下來是什麼：顧爾德的塗色本？
No one before or since has had the dexterity to make such transparent child’s play of Bach’s severest contrapuntal puzzles. That he played these pieces at such blinding speeds was not necessarily because he should have; I think he just wanted us to know that he could. To his great credit, Gould’s playing never complicated the simple. It is easy to decorate naked melody, extraordinarily difficult to keep its simplicity intact.
顧爾德把巴赫最嚴格的對位演奏得如此純真，他的純熟技巧空前絕後。他以令人眼花撩亂的速度彈奏這些曲子，未必因為他必須如此；我認為他只是要我們知道他做得到。顧爾德最值得讚賞的，是他的演奏從未把簡單的曲子複雜化。要裝飾無修飾的旋律很容易，要完全保持它的簡單卻極困難。
In the “serious” music usually associated with him – Bach, Beethoven and Mozart – Gould was happy to visit outrage on received wisdom. Yet he played Grieg and Brahms with docile acceptance of tradition.
在演奏經常和顧爾德連在一起的「嚴肅」音樂時，像是巴赫、貝多芬和莫札特，他樂於顛覆公認的技法。但他演奏葛利格和布拉姆斯時，則溫順地接受傳統。
Tales of his personal oddities were a thriving spinoff industry. There was Gould bundled up for blizzard conditions in tropical summer heat. His inhibitions about touching or being touched in later years limited human contact.
有關他個人怪癖的軼事是極有賣點的衍生產業。他曾在熱帶夏天高溫下，把自己包得像在大風雪天一般。他生前最後幾年避免觸碰他人或被觸碰，限制了他與人的接觸。
The Gould legacy is of great value if we put it in the right place. He is the most interesting Bach player in memory, but when taken as a model of how Bach should sound, he is a catastrophe.
我們若把顧爾德留給後世的遺產放在正確位置，它有極高價值。他是記憶中演奏巴赫最有趣的演奏家，但把他當成巴赫音樂應該如何的典範，他是個大災難。
With Angela Hewitt’s recent presentation of Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier” at Zankel Hall still in the ears, I have been going back to the Gould recordings of these preludes and fugues on Sony Classical. At a number of moments, Bach is brilliantly served. Gould’s intelligent use of astonishing muscular control in the C sharp and E flat fugues of Book 1 gives separate personalities to two and three voices in simultaneous conversation, this on a modern piano constructed to make individual notes sound uniform rather than distinctive.
安琪拉‧休伊特最近在卡內基音樂廳內桑凱爾廳演奏的巴赫平均律鋼琴曲仍在耳邊繚繞，我已回頭聽新力古典樂輯中顧爾德的這些前奏曲和賦格曲。在某些時候，他把巴赫詮釋得極巧妙。在平均律鋼琴曲第一冊的升C調和降E調賦格曲中，顧爾德聰明地利用驚人的肌肉掌控，賦予同時對話的兩三個聲音不同的個性，他是在現代鋼琴上演奏，而現代鋼琴的建構是讓個別音符聽起來統一，不是有區別性。
There are similar if occasional satisfactions. The rest is a series of assaults. They behave like satires, discreet lampoons of how everybody but Glenn Gould plays Bach. You hear a brilliant adolescent insulting his elders.
演奏中有類似的滿足，就算只是偶爾出現。其餘則是一連串攻擊，作風像諷刺作品，謹慎的諷刺顧爾德以外的人如何演奏巴赫。你聽到一個聰明的青少年汙辱他的長輩。
Gould’s concepts can be horrifying, like ice water thrown in the face, but they are always fascinating. The famous C major Prelude of Book 1 makes a simple request for flowing arpeggios; Gould chops the phrases into half-legato, half-staccato. The C sharp Prelude and E minor Fugue from Book 1 are made ridiculously fast, and these are just two examples of show-off acceleration.
顧爾德的觀念十分駭人，像冰水潑在臉上，但總是令人著迷。第一冊中著名的降C大調前奏曲簡單的要求流動的琶音；顧爾德把樂句切成半連奏、半斷奏。第一冊的升C調前奏曲和E小調賦格曲以快得離譜的速度彈奏，這只是炫耀加速度的兩個例子。
Revolutionaries get our attention, and often for the better, but whom would you want running New York City, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg or Che Guevara? But keep the Gould recordings close by; they keep us stirred up. No matter how you do it, he said, I’ll do it differently.
革命家引起我們注意，而且經常是為了變得更好，但你希望誰來治理紐約市，是彭博還是切‧格瓦拉？但請把顧爾德的唱片放在身邊；這些音樂讓我們熱血沸騰。他說，不管你怎麼演奏，我都會用不同的方式來演奏。
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