Like pearls falling into a jade plate
大珠小珠落玉盘
（陈继龙 学译）
Mar 30th 2006
From The Economist print edition
WHEN Wu Man arrived in New Haven1, Connecticut, from Beijing in 1990 she spoke no English and ★gambled on[1] surviving with (A) the help of her pipa, a traditional lute-like Chinese instrument. She has succeeded triumphantly, working her way from New York's Chinatown to Carnegie Hall2, where she gives her debut recital on April 6th.
1990年，吴曼从北京奔赴康涅狄格州纽黑文市的那会儿，一句英语也不会说，生存的希望完全寄托在她的琵琶（类似鲁特琴的中国传统乐器）上。现在她已经获得了骄人的成就——经过努力拼搏，终于从纽约的唐人街来到了卡内基音乐厅，并将于4月6日在那里首次举办独奏音乐会。
The pipa is a sonorous, four-stringed, pear-shaped instrument held upright on the lap. Its strings used to be silk but are now steel, which resonates better. The fake fingernails on Ms Wu's right hand ★pluck[2] the strings, while her left hand fingers the ★frets[3]. She produces an astonishing range of colours and moods from a 2,000-year-old instrument which produces a sound, observed a poet from the Tang dynasty, like “pearls falling into a jade plate”.
琵琶是一种音色清亮的四弦乐器，其形如梨，演奏时被竖抱于膝上。琵琶弦以前多为丝制，现已改为钢弦，共振效果更佳。吴曼用右手上的假指甲拨弦，而用左手手指压盖音柱。在她的弹奏下，这种有着2000年历史的乐器发出的一曲曲乐音音色和韵味都令人惊叹不已，正如一首唐 诗 所说，像“大珠小珠落玉盘”一般。
Ms Wu is a ★virtuoso[4] interpreter of traditional music, creating hauntingly exotic waves of sound with ★pizzicatos and tremolos[5] (the plucking of one string with all five fingers consecutively). But evocations of dropping pearls soon fade to Jimi Hendrix3. During her time in America, Ms Wu has daringly expanded the pipa's range, playing jazz, bluegrass4 and Bollywood5 with eclectic instrumentalists—and inspiring numerous works from prominent composers.
吴女士使用弹拨和震音（用5根手指连续拨动一根弦），奏出了众多令人萦怀的异国曲调，其诠释传统音乐的造诣之深可见一斑。但是，“大珠小珠落玉盘”的召唤力很快就消失殆尽，一如当年的“吉米•亨德里克斯经验”乐队。在美国期间，吴女士大胆扩展了琵琶的演奏范围，与电子乐器手共同弹奏爵士乐、蓝草音乐、宝莱坞电影音乐，并且激发一些知名作曲家谱写了众多作品。
The pipa can sound gently lyrical or agGREssively modern, which is why, says Ms Wu, it attracts such composers as Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Tan Dun and Bright Sheng, all of whom have written for her. She was the first to partner the pipa with an endongo (an eight-stringed Ugandan instrument), an Appalachian banjo and a string quartet6. She was also, she says, the first to play jazz on the pipa.
吴女士说，琵琶之声时而柔美如 诗 ，时而激越且不乏时代感，这就是它之所以能吸引泰瑞•莱利、菲利普•格拉斯、谭盾、盛宗亮等作曲家的缘故，而这些人都曾为其谱过曲子。她是第一个把琵琶与乌干达竖琴、阿帕拉契五弦琴以及弦乐四重奏组合在一起的人，也是第一个用琵琶弹奏爵士乐的人。
All this happened after she arrived in America. Young Chinese musicians are now ubiquitous in American and European conservatories, competitions and concert halls, but during China's cultural revolution the performance of Western music was GREatly restricted. Traditional instruments, however, were encouraged, and Ms Wu, born in 1964 in Hangzhou, began studying the pipa when she was nine.
一切均始于她抵达美国之后。现如今在美国和欧洲的音乐学院、各类比赛以及音乐厅里，年轻的中国音乐家比比皆是。要知道，在中国“文化大革命”时期，演奏西洋音乐是受到严格限制的，国家提倡使用传统乐器，于是乎，1964年出生于杭州的吴曼9岁时开始学弹琵琶。
She entered the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music (where she heard Western music for the first time) and became the first recipient of a masters deGREe in the pipa. She was awarded a ★tenured[6] faculty position. But her curiosity about the West proved irresistible. Colleagues who had emigrated to the United States warned her that there was no interest in Chinese traditional music, but, undaunted, she packed seven instruments (including pipas, a zither and a dulcimer) and set off.
她考进了北京中央音乐学院（在那里她第一次听到了西洋音乐），随后获得中国第一个琵琶专业硕士学位并被授予终身教授职位。但是，她实在掩饰不住对西方的好奇心。移居美国的同事告诫她说，美国人对中国传统音乐毫无兴趣，但她并没有打退堂鼓，带上七件乐器（其中包括琵琶、古筝和一把扬琴）就出发了。
During the first two difficult years she learnt English and cried a lot. She joined other Chinese musicians and began performing in New York's Chinatown, rehearsing in the basement of a dry-cleaner. American musicians would approach her after concerts, fascinated. David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet said that the first time he heard her play was like the first time he heard Jascha Heifetz, a master violinist.
头两年的生活很艰辛，她学习英语，也哭过很多次。她加入了其他中国音乐家的行列，开始在纽约唐人街演出，在一家干洗店地下室里排练。几场音乐会下来，美国的音乐家们被迷住了，开始主动跟她打交道。“克诺斯四重奏”乐队的戴维•哈林顿说，他起初听她演奏时的感觉就像头一次听小提琴大师雅沙•海飞兹演奏一样。
Mr Harrington chose her to perform in the quartet's recent Bollywood-inspired recording because he wanted one person to create many different sounds. Ms Wu, with her “large sonic vocabulary”, was uniquely qualified. She also attracted the attention of Yo Yo Ma, a cellist with whom she now frequently performs as a member of his Silk Road ★Ensemble[7].
“克诺斯四重奏”乐队最近录制一张取材于宝莱坞电影音乐的唱片时，哈林顿看中了她，因为他需要一个人能独自奏出多种不同的声音效果。拥有“丰富的声汇量”的吴女士当之无愧。她也引起了马友友的注意——作为这位大提琴家“丝绸之路”演奏团的一员，她现在经常和他同台表演。
Pipa players and audiences in China are also becoming more open minded; she caused excitement when she performed in Beijing with the Kronos Quartet ten years ago. “That's my hope,” she says, “that the next generation know there is another way for traditional instruments to survive.”
中国的琵琶演奏者和听众的思想也越来越开放，十年前吴曼与克诺斯四重奏一起在北京的演出曾经轰动一时。她说：“我希望下一代中国人明白，还有一种能让传统乐器经久不衰的方法。”
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
[1]gamble v.以……为赌注，孤注一掷to do something that involves a lot of risk, and that will not succeed unless things happen the way you would like them to
gamble on
They're gambling on Johnson being fit for Saturday's game.
gamble something on something
Potter gambled everything on his new play being a hit.
[2]pluck v.弹拨to pull the strings of a musical instrument
pluck at
Someone was plucking at the strings of an old guitar.
[3]fret n.音品；安在某些弦乐器如吉他弹拨处的一个或多个隆起物one of the raised lines on the fretboard of a guitar etc
[4] virtuoso plural virtuosos
n. 技术超群的表演者（尤指音乐）someone who is a very skilful performer, especially in music:
violin virtuoso Stephane Grappelli
—virtuoso adjective [only before noun]
a virtuoso performance
a virtuoso pianist
[5] pizzicatos and tremolos 拨奏曲和颤音
[6]tenure
[UC]享有终身教授的权利 the right to stay permanently in a teaching job:
It's becoming increasingly difficult to acquire academic tenure.
—tenured adjective:
a tenured professor
a tenured position
[7]ensemble <法>全体, [音]合唱曲, 全体演出者
