文章简介

       《混乱而非音乐》(Сумбур вместо музыки - Sumbur vmesto muzyki) 是一篇未署名的于1936年1月28日在苏联共产党中央委员会机关报《真理报》(Пра́вда - Pravda) 第3版上发表的专论，批评了苏联作曲家德米特里·肖斯塔科维奇 (Dmitri Shostakovich) 根据19世纪俄罗斯作家尼古拉·列斯科夫 (Nikolay Leskov) 的小说《姆岑斯克县的麦克白夫人》(Леди Макбет Мценского уезда - Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo uezda) 所作的同名歌剧 (Op.29)。在这篇专论中《麦克白夫人》被指责是“形式主义”和“自然主义”，致使该歌剧在苏联被禁演，同时中止了肖斯塔科维奇创作表现三个不同时期的俄罗斯妇女形象的歌剧的计划。[1]这一事件标志着苏联音乐界的反形式主义运动的开始。

        本篇译文由笔者从英译本翻译成中文，意思或与原文有一定差别；同时笔者只是业余翻译者，无法完全遵循“信达雅”的原则进行翻译，还请见谅。本文的翻译原则如下：

1. 尽量保留英译文中句子的成分和标点符号，“汉化”了部分不符合中文表达习惯的句子，包括但不限于改变语序、语义，增加或删除连词、标点符号和定语

2. 对部分有歧义和需要译者个人理解的单词短语进行了揣测，均已标绿

        尽管如此，本篇译文依然是佶屈聱牙的——通篇不符合中文表达习惯的长句、复杂的句子成分以及毫无流畅感——杨燕迪先生是极其排斥这种翻译方式的。

混乱而非音乐

戴维·扎斯拉夫斯基[2]

        我国文化的全面发展促使对于优质音乐的需求不断增加。作曲家在其他任何时候任何地方都不曾拥有比这里更具欣赏力的听众。人民期待好听的歌曲，也同样期待优秀的器乐曲和歌剧。

        部分剧院将肖斯塔科维奇的歌剧《麦克白夫人》视作一种创新与成就，并正为新一批文化鉴赏上成熟的苏联公民呈上。伺机而动的音乐批评界已将其捧上了天，并给之以巨大的荣耀。这位年轻的作曲家听见的不是可能帮助其未来创作的严肃批评，而只是热情的赞美之词。

        听众从第一分钟起就被一股混乱的声音流露出的刻意的不和谐音所震惊。断断续续的旋律和乐句的萌芽时沉时浮，最终消失在一阵刺耳的嘶吼声里。理解这种“音乐“已经异常困难，记住它则是不可能的。

        这种乱象持续贯穿了整部歌剧。台上的歌声被尖叫声取而代之。如果作曲家有机会想出一段简明清晰的旋律，他便会将自己重新打回充斥着杂乱无章的音乐的荒野中——在那里乐音正变为噪音。听众期待的表现力被狂野的节奏所取代，热情竟由喧嚣来表现。造成这一切的原因并非是这位作曲家天赋不足，也不是他没有能力表现强烈和朴素的音乐情感。音乐在此处被刻意地彻底扭曲了，谁也不能从这部歌剧中想起古典歌剧，更找不到其与交响乐以及简朴的、为大众熟知的音乐语汇有任何共通之处。这种音乐是建立在否定歌剧的基础之上的——与所谓“左派”艺术在戏剧中背离朴素性、现实性、形象清晰以及用语不矫揉造作的基础如出一辙，它将“梅耶霍尔德主义”中最负面的特征无限放大并带入到戏剧和音乐中。现在我们有了”左派”的混乱而非正常的人类音乐。优秀音乐感染大众的力量已经因一位小布尔乔亚而牺牲了，这位“形式主义者”试图用拙劣的扮丑表演来体现他的独特性，而这种表演是一场可能惨淡收场的耍小聪明的智力游戏。[3]

        此等趋势对于苏联音乐的危害是不言而喻的。左派在歌剧中的扭曲与在绘画、诗歌、教学、科学中的扭曲同根同源。小布尔乔亚的“创新”带来的是其与真正的艺术、科学和文学的决裂。

       《麦克白夫人》的作曲家为赋予剧中人物“激情”，强行挪用了爵士乐中紧张、抽搐而痉挛的元素。当包括的乐评家在内的苏联评论家都以社会主义现实主义的名义起誓时，肖斯塔科维奇创作下的舞台音乐却向我们展现了最粗俗的自然主义。他单调而残忍地揭露了商人与人民的粗陋面貌。通过谋杀攫取财富的敲骨吸髓的商妇竟被描绘成资产阶级社会下的某种“受害者”。列斯科夫的故事已经被加诸了其所无法承受的重担。

        而这一切都是粗俗鄙陋的。音乐怪叫着，咕哝又咆哮着，最后使自己窒息以尽可能地表现自然主义下的爱情场景。“爱情”则在整出歌剧中被最下流的行为所亵渎。商人的双人床占据了舞台的最中心。所有的“问题”都在这张床上得到了解决。在同样粗俗的自然主义下，下毒和鞭笞致死都被切实地展现在台上。

        这位作曲家显然从未考虑过苏联听众对音乐的期望。他仿佛是刻意地将他的音乐乱写一气，搅乱了所有声音，以至于他的音乐只会传到那些失去了一切健康品味的、贫瘠的"形式主义者”耳中。他无视苏联文化中摒奔生活中一切粗俗与野蛮的要求。一些批评家称对商人欲望的美化是一种讽刺，但这种讽刺并无问题。作曲家企图用他掌握的一切音乐和戏剧手法来唤起观众对商妇卡捷琳娜·伊兹梅洛娃 (Катерина Измайлова) 俗不可耐的行为的同情。

       《麦克白夫人》在海外的资产阶级观众中取得了巨大成功。他们称赞这部歌剧难道是因为它混乱且不具政治含义吗 ？难道不是因为它用烦躁、神经质的音乐迎合了资产阶级病态的品味吗？

        我们的剧院已经花费了大量精力来全面展现肖斯塔科维奇的歌剧。演员们表现出了对掌控音乐中的噪音、尖叫和咆哮的过人才能。他们力图用夸张的动作遮盖旋律内容上的不足。不幸的是，这只能更加生动形象地凸显出该歌剧粗俗的特征。才华横溢的表演值得被感激，而在这部歌剧的表演上枉费的力气只能用“遗憾”来形容。

Chaos Instead of Music[4]

David Zaslavsky (trans. by ?)

With the general cultural development of our country there grew also the necessity for good music. At no time and in no other place has the composer had a more appreciative audience. The people expect good songs, but also good instrumental works, and good operas.

Certain theatres are presenting to the new culturally mature Soviet public Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth as an innovation and achievement. Musical criticism, always ready to serve, has praised the opera to the skies, and given it resounding glory. The young composer, instead of hearing serious criticism, which could have helped him in his future work, hears only enthusiastic compliments.

From the first minute, the listener is shocked by deliberate dissonance, by a confused stream of sound. Snatches of melody, the beginnings of a musical phrase, are drowned, emerge again, and disappear in a grinding and squealing roar. To follow this ‘music’ is most difficult; to remember it, impossible.

Thus it goes, practically throughout the entire opera. The singing on the stage is replaced by shrieks. If the composer chances to come upon the path of a clear and simple melody, he throws himself back into a wilderness of musical chaos – in places becoming cacophony. The expression which the listener expects is supplanted by wild rhythm. Passion is here supposed to be expressed by noise. All this is not due to lack of talent, or lack of ability to depict strong and simple emotions in music. Here is music turned deliberately inside out in order that nothing will be reminiscent of classical opera, or have anything in common with symphonic music or with simple and popular musical language accessible to all. This music is built on the basis of rejecting opera – the same basis on which ‘Leftist’ art rejects in the theatre simplicity, realism, clarity of image, and the unaffected spoken word – which carries into the theatre and into music the most negative features of ‘Meyerholdism’ infinitely multiplied. Here we have ‘leftist’ confusion instead of natural human music. The power of good music to infect the masses has been sacrificed to a petty-bourgeois, ‘formalist’ attempt to create originality through cheap clowning. It is a game of clever ingenuity that may end very badly.

The danger of this trend to Soviet music is clear. Leftist distortion in opera stems from the same source as Leftist distortion in painting, poetry, teaching, and science. Petty-bourgeois ‘innovations’ lead to a break with real art, real science and real literature.

The composer of Lady Macbeth was forced to borrow from jazz its nervous, convulsive, and spasmodic music in order to lend ‘passion’ to his characters. While our critics, including music critics, swear by the name of socialist realism, the stage serves us, in Shostakovich’s creation, the coarsest kind of naturalism. He reveals the merchants and the people monotonously and bestially. The predatory merchant woman who scrambles into the possession of wealth through murder is pictured as some kind of ‘victim’ of bourgeois society. Leskov’s story has been given a significance which it does not possess.

And all this is coarse, primitive and vulgar. The music quacks, grunts, and growls, and suffocates itself in order to express the love scenes as naturalistically as possible. And ‘love’ is smeared all over the opera in the most vulgar manner. The merchant’s double bed occupies the central position on the stage. On this bed all ‘problems’ are solved. In the same coarse, naturalistic style is shown the death from poisoning and the flogging – both practically on stage.

The composer apparently never considered the problem of what the Soviet audience looks for and expects in music. As though deliberately, he scribbles down his music, confusing all the sounds in such a way that his music would reach only the effete ‘formalists’ who had lost all their wholesome taste. He ignored the demand of Soviet culture that all coarseness and savagery be abolished from every corner of Soviet life. Some critics call the glorification of the merchants’ lust a satire. But there is no question of satire here. The composer has tried, with all the musical and dramatic means at his command, to arouse the sympathy of the spectators for the coarse and vulgar inclinations and behaviour of the merchant woman Katerina Izmailova.

Lady Macbeth is having great success with bourgeois audiences abroad. Is it not because the opera is non-political and confusing that they praise it? Is it not explained by the fact that it tickles the perverted taste of the bourgeois with its fidgety, neurotic music?

Our theatres have expended a great deal of energy on giving Shostakovich’s opera a thorough presentation. The actors have shown exceptional talent in dominating the noise, the screaming, and the roar of the orchestra. With their dramatic action, they have tried to reinforce the weakness of the melodic content. Unfortunately, this has served only to bring out the opera’s vulgar features more vividly. The talented acting deserves gratitude, the wasted efforts – regret.

参考文献

[1]李妍. 斯大林文艺政策的变化对苏联音乐精英的影响[D]. 西安: 陕西师范大学, 2016: 24.

[2]所罗门,伏尔科夫. 见证——肖斯塔科维奇回忆录[M]. 叶琼芳,译. 北京: 作家出版社, 2015: 136.

[3]沈旋, 谷文娴, 陶辛. 西方音乐史简编[M]. 上海: 上海音乐出版社, 2010: 59-60.

[4]Victor Seroff. Dimitri Shostakovich: the Life and Background of a Soviet Composer[M]. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (Publishers) Inc, 1943: 204-207.

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