【王羽佳】卡内基一生一次的拉赫马拉松式演出

写在前面！！非英语专业生手工翻译！！会有一些不准确的地方！！会有一些完全不会翻译的地方！！纯粹为爱发电！！不要打我！！不要打我！！不要打我！！原文在中文后面！！谢谢看官们的厚爱！！（翻译不易如果觉得这还算是人话的话麻烦支持一下）原文来自《纽约时代杂志》，侵删。

这是一个值得铭记的时刻，王羽佳在卡内基音乐厅一次性演奏了5部拉赫玛尼诺夫的钢琴作品。

王羽佳在周六的马拉松演奏会上，她每一首拉赫玛尼诺夫钢琴协奏曲和帕格尼尼主题狂想曲都穿了不一样的服装。

周六，王羽佳将四首难度惊人的拉赫玛尼诺夫四首钢琴协奏曲和帕格尼尼主题狂想曲演绎的炉火纯青，大概“一生一次“这个词就是为这场演出而发明的。在演出结束之后，整个卡内基音乐厅的观众都站起来鼓掌。她让人们沉浸在这两个半小时的音乐盛宴里（为什么两个半小时啊整个音乐会是四个半小时），然后自己回家好好洗个澡放松一下。

但是这位明星艺术家因为音乐会中的曲目和返场而出名。2018年在卡内基音乐厅，她7次返场，收获了无数掌声。她在几周前现身与纽约爱乐乐团合作，并且至少三次在返场演奏了曲目。

于是在星期六，在王羽佳和费城爱乐乐团和塞甘的合作结束之后，观众们又安静下来，羽佳回到钢琴前弹奏了格鲁克的选自 Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice”的“Dance of the Blessed Spirits”。这首曲子清新而温柔，而就是在她的指尖下，刚刚演奏完如焰火版绚烂、密集、热烈的拉赫玛尼诺夫钢琴作品。

她似乎没有流下任何一滴汗，无论是在她的脸上或者是音乐的演奏过程中，她静静地在那里闪耀着，直到整个项目，也就是拉赫玛尼诺夫第三钢琴协奏曲华丽的结束。她给这些对于背谱技术要求极高的曲子带来了清晰和诗意。

她演奏地十分有力量，但是又不夸大这些力量，她表达地相当感性，却又不轻浮。她的触键当然是坚定的，但是没有一个音符是刺耳的或是过于沉重的；她一贯的风格是轻快的，这就是为什么听她的音乐会不像你一下子吃了五篇巧克力蛋糕一样油腻。在《帕格尼尼主题狂想曲曲》变奏18中，这个作品的高潮部分，在加入肌肉的发力之前，她演奏风格变得端庄而梦幻。但是当管弦乐队加入时，这是许多钢琴家都会猛烈敲击琴键，但是王羽佳她拒绝这样演奏。在这次时间很长的音乐会里，她本人没有感觉到自己有时间去进行深入的调整。她休息了五次，两次短暂的休息，两次中场休息，和一次长时间的，意想不到的音乐会中断，这是因为在《第二钢琴曲》第三乐章演奏伊始，观众突发急病需要就医，于是这个乐章被打断了。这场音乐会持续了约四个半小时。

本次节目的两大亮点是第二和第三钢琴协奏曲，这是上个世纪曲目的试金石，也包括拉赫年轻时所作的《第一钢琴协奏曲》，以及多变的，配器繁多的《第四钢琴协奏曲》，和如万花筒般绚烂有趣的《帕格尼尼主题狂想曲曲》。这五首作品的创作和修改几乎从拉赫玛尼诺夫职业生涯的开始一直延续到结束，从19世纪90年代早期到20世纪40年代早期（他出生于150年前的4月）。但是这五首曲子都留下了他不可磨灭的印记：华丽的感情，凶猛的展开，连续的节奏变换，当然还有反映于琴键上的激烈和柔情的交替。

王羽佳在这种交替中凭借着她飞速指法和强音和弦的力量与准确性表现得十分灵活，同样重要的是，在平静的乐章中，她兼具耐心和优雅。第二钢琴协奏曲的第二乐章接近尾声，她奏响的和弦飘向远方，在尾声的喧闹之前，显得朦胧而明亮。

在第三协奏曲接近尾声的汹涌中，钢琴选择了一次内敛，王羽佳用精准的细节塑造了这一段：前两个和弦轻柔，下一个突然响亮——比她在整场音乐会独奏的时候听上去更加强——在最后一个乐句消逝在卡内基的空气中。这几个元素构成了一个整体的风格：脆弱，坚强，求索但不会迷茫。这和随之而来的炽热的八度跑动一样令人难忘。

这场音乐会的第一个部分，也就是第二和第一钢琴协奏曲，是非常震撼的。无论是什么原因，你都会感觉到，尼赞-塞甘与这支交响乐团之间配合的极为完美，就像是双向奔赴。这支乐团在历史上和拉赫本人有着密切的合作，曾首演过《第四钢琴协奏曲》和《狂想曲》。最终，以他为钢琴演奏家录制了他所有的协奏曲和狂想曲这五部曲子。

周六，在第二钢协的开场乐章出现了不稳定的情况，似乎打破了平衡：琴弦的声音层次并不是很丰富，被淹没在乐团里。自由速度在延伸着，但是也并不是每个人都在朝着同样的方向延伸。管乐器的独奏部分就像是在乐团的精心呵护下脱颖而出，十分珍贵。

整首曲子逐渐稳定下来，大家渐入佳境。那灵感的云朵就犹豫地聚集在钢琴的声线下。在第四钢协之后的狂想曲中，乐团呈现拉赫玛尼诺夫作品理想的声音：闪闪发光，气势恢宏。

《末日经》（指的是狂想曲第七变奏）旋律出现的时候，费城交响的乐手就像猫一样（我也不太明白这句话为什么这么表达）在彩虹般绚烂的旋律里大放异彩。第三钢协的开头寂静地宛若初雪后的大地，王羽佳用最柔和的和弦仿佛雪地中的脚步声。在第二乐章中，管乐如呼吸，灵活且自然，似乎想把她向上推进，而非将她淹没在最后一小节中。

这一巅峰性的冲刺无疑展现了王羽佳钢琴作品的耀眼光芒。这场音乐会还展示了王羽佳的另外一个特点：华丽的服装，也许这次的服装比以往任何时候都要好。

她为每一首曲子都精心挑选了一件不同的衣服和她经典的高跟鞋，裹身裙是闪闪发光的红色亮片、象牙白、森林绿和银白色。更值得一提的是，她在演奏《狂想曲》时身着一件品红色迷你裙，搭配了闪亮的护腿裤。（唉，返场的时候没有换装，下次一定！）

10年前还是15年前，王羽佳在音乐会的着装选择引发了争议，所幸，这些争议现在已经平息了，我们可以集中精力关注这些选择背后的快乐，也正是在周六，这些着装完美地和这些令人欢乐的曲目本身交相辉映。我们欣赏目睹了这场音乐盛宴——这就是为什么，即使在这么多小时之后，我仍然感到兴奋和轻松。和我看到的许多人一样，我走出过道，走在街上，依旧在微笑。

 

It was a momentous occasion as Wang played all five of Rachmaninoff’s works for piano and orchestra at Carnegie Hall for one show only.

Yuja Wang had different clothing for each of Rachmaninoff’s four piano concertos, and his “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” which she performed in a marathon at Carnegie Hall on Saturday.

After playing, with electric mastery, all four of Rachmaninoff’s dizzyingly difficult piano concertos and his “Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini” on Saturday — the kind of feat for which the phrase “once in a lifetime” was invented — she would have been forgiven for accepting a sold-out Carnegie Hall’s standing ovation, letting those two and a half hours of music speak for themselves, and heading home for a bubble bath.

But this is a superstar artist as famous for what comes after her written programs as during them. At Carnegie in 2018, she responded to waves of applause with seven encores. Appearing with the New York Philharmonic a few weeks ago, she returned to the keyboard no fewer than three times.

So on Saturday, the audience hushed as Wang, after all she’d already done with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, sat back down at the piano and played the “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” from Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice.” It had the same freshness and tender lucidity that, in her hands, had lain beneath even Rachmaninoff’s densest, most ferocious fireworks.

She didn’t seem to have broken a sweat — neither on her face nor in her music-making, which had been calmly dazzling all the way through the final flourish of the Third Concerto at the program’s end.

To these scores’ vast demands she brought both clarity and poetry. She played with heft but not bombast, sentiment but not schmaltz. Her touch can certainly be firm, but not a single note was harsh or overly heavy; her prevailing style is sprightly, which is why the concert didn’t feel like eating five slices of chocolate cake in a row. In the 18th variation of the “Rhapsody,” the work’s aching climax, she began demurely and dreamily before adding muscle. But when the orchestra joined in, a point at which many pianists begin to pound, she refused to hammer.

She didn’t give the sense that she was pacing herself, either, over this very long stretch. With five breaks — two pauses, two full intermissions and one long, impromptu stop spurred by a medical emergency in the audience that interrupted the Second Concerto, the opener, just after the final movement had begun — the concert lasted about four and a half hours.

The program was flanked by the Second and Third concertos, touchstones of the repertory for the past century, and also included the youthful First; the changeable, big-band-inflected Fourth; and the playfully kaleidoscopic “Rhapsody.” The composition and revision of these five pieces extended almost from the beginning to the end of Rachmaninoff’s career, from the early 1890s to the early 1940s. (He was born 150 years ago this April.) But all of them share his unmistakable stamp: the sumptuous soulfulness, the soaring expansions, the restless rhythmic shifts and, of course, the alternation of fierce energy and intimate reflection in the piano.

Wang is nimble at that alternation, with power and accuracy in fast fingerwork and fortissimo chords — and, just as important, patience and elegance in cooler moments. Her pillowy chords at the close of the Second Concerto’s middle movement floated quietly into place, and she was shadowy but luminous before that piece’s ending romp.

Before the final plunge near the end of the Third Concerto, the piano takes one last, brief inward look. Wang shaped this passage with exquisite detail: the first two chords gentle, the next suddenly louder and surprisingly tough — tougher than she’d sounded in solo moments like this during the whole concert — before the rest of the phrase ebbed into mist. This handful of measures painted a whole situation and personality: vulnerable, strong, searching but not lost. It was as memorable as the blazing runs and octaves that followed.

The program’s first block, the Second and First concertos, might have involved shaking out some jitters over the momentousness of the occasion. Whatever the reason, there was a sense of audibly finding the right gear among Nézet-Séguin and this orchestra — which has a historical claim to Rachmaninoff, having premiered the Fourth Concerto and the “Rhapsody” before eventually recording all five of these pieces with him as the soloist.

The Second Concerto’s opening movement was unsettled on Saturday, and the balances seemed off: The strings, less rich than turgid, swamped the winds and often Wang. Rubato stretched the line, but everyone wasn’t always stretching in the same direction. Wind solos felt excessively manicured, to the point of preciousness.

But things gradually settled in. Apocalyptic storm clouds moodily gathered underneath the piano line in the first movement of the Fourth Concerto. And by the “Rhapsody,” which followed the Fourth, the ensemble had taken on the ideal Rachmaninoff sound: glittering and grand.

The Philadelphians were practically feline in the iridescent orchestration of the grim Dies Irae’s appearance in the “Rhapsody.” A shivering hush in the first movement of the Third Concerto was like a snow in which Wang made soft footsteps with the palest chords. In the second movement, the winds at the start sounded as flexible and natural as they had all day, and the orchestra now seemed to sweep Wang’s lines upward rather than smothering her in the race to the final measures.

That culminating dash had the easy sparkle of Wang’s best work. The concert also showed off, perhaps better than ever before, another defining feature of her performances: flamboyant clothes.

A lot of them. She wore, along with her typical very high heels, a different dress for each of the five pieces, with skintight fits and shimmering fabric in red, ivory, green and silver — and, most immortal, a magenta minidress for the “Rhapsody” paired with sparkling periwinkle leg warmers. (Alas, there was no costume change for the encore. Next time!)

With the controversy that greeted Wang’s attire choices 10 or 15 years ago now thankfully muted, we can concentrate on the joyfulness of those choices, which on Saturday were apt partners for these fundamentally joyful works. Virtuosity on this level, in material this ravishing, is elevating to witness — which is why, even after so many hours, I was left at the end feeling an exhilarated lightness. Like many others I saw, I drifted up the aisle and onto the street unable to stop smiling.