與紐愛合作 林肯中心獻藝 「以鋼琴想像國術」 「武林高手」盡情發揮
【本報記者謝朝宗紐約報導】譚盾形容他為郎朗所寫、將於9日與紐約愛樂首演的鋼琴協奏曲，是「以鋼琴想像中國武術」，只有郎朗這樣的「武林高手」才能勝任。
紐約愛樂委托譚盾作曲，由郎朗擔任主奏的鋼琴協奏曲，將於周三首演，之後連續表演三晚。每晚演出前的6時30分，譚盾將在現場討論音樂創作動機。
剛從北京回到紐約的譚盾7日表示，他為了替郎朗寫曲子，思考了很久，「鋼琴對中國人的意義是什麼？在貝多芬、柴可夫斯基、拉赫曼尼諾夫等人之後再寫鋼琴協奏曲，要怎樣才能別出心裁？」
譚盾說他最後想出來了，鋼琴就像是中國武術，既是剛也是柔，既是陽也是陰。因為武術中既有迅捷猛暴的速度和力道，也有陰柔婉轉的纏綿，而鋼琴既是一種旋律的 樂器，也是一種敲擊樂器，所以又可以表現最浪漫的曲調，又可以做出很多節奏的強度。他形容這首曲子是要在「水火交融間找出和諧，在柔情的表面下感受到火山 的熱度。」
這首鋼琴協奏曲共三個樂章，曲長35分鐘，郎朗形容這支曲子「既是浪漫，也是現代；既是中國，也是西方；既有柔美抒情的旋律，又有很複雜的節奏，是標準的譚盾音樂，展現了他的音樂絕活。」
譚盾表示，郎朗的技巧和音樂表現，都已進入「武林高手」之列，所以他寫了很多高難度的演奏方式，不但手指要動，還要用拳頭、手掌、甚至手臂來彈。譚盾說， 「手指可以彈出崑曲的柔情，拳頭要敲出京韻大鼓的節奏，手掌要迅猛，手臂則要有出臂如風的效果。」除此之外，他還用了很多敲擊樂器。
譚盾去年在大都會歌劇院的舞台首演「秦始皇」，這回又要在林肯中心由最有觀眾緣的郎朗首演鋼琴協奏曲，都是萬眾矚目的演出。不過他說藝術家的壓力不來自舞台大小，而是自己的視野，要「不斷超越自己」，才是最大的壓力。
在演出開始前，背景大屏幕上播放了一段譚盾的簡短演講，他說，自己一直在思考，在貝多芬(聽歌)、柴可夫斯基、拉赫曼尼諾夫等偉大的音樂家之後，要怎樣才能創作出一首具有時代精神的鋼琴協奏曲呢？他的靈感來自于剛柔並濟的中國武術。和武術一樣，他尋求的是一種真切扎實卻超然于物的藝術感染力，時而平緩柔和的旋律，卻有堅韌的力量和無處不在的爆發力，時而轟然迸發的節奏，又流淌著禪宗般無與倫比的神秘氣息。仿佛是水火交融一般，有時水佔了上風，有時火成了主導，演繹著最激烈的衝撞和最糾結的交會。
譚盾認為，這首鋼琴協奏曲帶給人們的是相當新穎的概念，在整部協奏曲中鋼琴既是旋律也是節奏，有時候甚至要把鋼琴當作鼓來打。在演出時，這一表述得到了證實，而郎朗的表現也可以用完美來形容。有時，他可以如此輕柔地拂過琴鍵，全場觀眾便鴉雀無聲，仿佛要屏息傾聽才不至于打擾這靜謐柔軟的旋律；有時，他又會用手指、手掌、拳頭、甚至是手臂來敲擊鎚打鍵盤，和整個樂隊合奏起來有種讓人窒息的震撼力。譚盾說，用手指可以彈出昆曲的柔情，拳頭要敲出京韻大鼓的節奏，手掌要迅猛，手臂則要有出臂如風的效果。而正是這種前所未有的音樂表達，讓整首鋼琴協奏曲擁有了既浪漫又現代、既東方又西方的神秘氣息。
由于時間緊張，這首鋼琴協奏曲總共只有2天的彩排時間，每天也只有短暫的2小時。4月8日上午10點第一天集體彩排時，譚盾才第一次完整地聽到了自己的作品，而郎朗彩排結束後還要立刻飛到費城開自己的獨奏音樂會。因此，兩位音樂大師只有短短20分鐘時間交流，讓身邊的工作人員都為演出捏了一把汗。可譚盾似乎一點不擔心，他也笑稱郎朗絕對是武林高手級的人物，演奏這部作品一定能做到駕輕就熟。而事實也證明，當晚的演出已經成為了紐約藝術界熱議的話題。全世界最知名的演出商都趕來觀看鋼琴協奏曲的全球首演。
據悉，在很短的時間內，已有演出商找上門來。現已確定，7月初，譚盾將在德國舉辦一場特別的中國之夜音樂會，屆時將再次演奏譚盾創作的鋼琴協奏曲。
Music Review | New York Philharmonic
Composer as Celebrity, Musician as Martial Artist
(April 11, 2008 New York Times)
It is not often that a performance at the New York Philharmonic generates the buzz that attended Wednesday night’s premiere of Tan Dun’s Piano Concerto. Mr. Tan, whose concert works combine Asian elements with the avant-garde, became an international celebrity when his ferociously propulsive film score for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” earned him an Academy Award in 2001.
Mr. Tan’s concerto was written for the phenomenally popular piano virtuoso, Lang Lang, who attracts devoted audiences no matter what he plays. Avery Fisher Hall was nearly full for the concert, conducted by Leonard Slatkin.
In a spoken introduction, the composer Steven Stucky predicted that the concerto would be both a crowd pleaser and a head-scratcher. I’m not sure about the head-scratcher part. Though the 30-minute piece is eclectic, skillfully written and viscerally dramatic, the music seemed to give away most of its secrets on first hearing.
But it is certainly a crowd pleaser. In the best sense, Mr. Tan’s concerto, vibrantly scored for an orchestra rich with Western and Asian percussion instruments, has the entertaining vitality and coloristic allure of his brilliant film music.
In a taped interview that was screened just before the premiere, Mr. Tan said that the concerto was inspired by his love for the martial arts and that Mr. Lang, a pianist he reveres, embodies the qualities of a martial arts master in his playing. The ancient practice, he explained, is an art of seeming contradictions. A stance of physical stillness can convey tension and quickness, and bursts of action can seem cool and deliberate.
Mr. Tan tries to capture this duality in music that veers from passages of stillness to explosions of energy. Each of the three movements is broken up with episodic sections. The piece begins with a low, softly ominous rumbling trill in the piano, over which the orchestra floats pungent, deceptively calm chords that blithely slink from harmony to harmony. Soon the percussion section, alive with pummeling drum riffs, intrudes, prodding the pianist into bouts of fidgety chords and spiraling runs.
The Bartok concertos, with their astringent harmonies and percussive piano writing, seem a model for Mr. Tan here. Yet during extended passages of dreamy lyricism, when the piano plays delicate melodic lines over rippling arpeggio accompaniments that sound like Asian salon music, Mr. Tan seems to be channeling Rachmaninoff.
The orchestral writing is full of striking touches, as when a propulsive episode in the piano is backed up by rhythmically staggered fortissimo chords of slashing strings and clanking brake drums. And Mr. Tan proved good at his word in treating Mr. Lang as a martial artist of the keyboard. In the most hellbent outbursts Mr. Lang played cluster chords with fists, karate chops and even the full weight of his forearms. Yet there are just as many delicate moments where Mr. Lang created spans of fleecy passagework and haunting melodic lines of fast repeated notes, an evocation of the guqin, the Chinese zither.
Mr. Slatkin drew a sweeping, urgent and nuanced performance from the orchestra, and at the conclusion he, Mr. Lang and the elated composer received prolonged ovations.
It was a good idea on Mr. Slatkin’s part to pair the new concerto with Stravinsky’s complete “Firebird,” a score that also combines Impressionistic colorings, folkloric tunes and fantasy. But Mr. Slatkin’s conducting was curiously blatant, fussy and ineffective, with extremes of dynamics that seemed overly manipulated. It was like listening to a poorly engineered CD, when you keep cranking up the volume during pianissimo passages and turning it down during the fortissimo climaxes.
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