Alma Deutscher—A Teenage Composer Linking Reality and Fairy Tale

⊙By Seth Stone ⊙ 翻譯：BillyBudd

11歲的時候，你在干嘛呢？或許正在為功課考試頭疼不已？或許正出于愛好或應(yīng)父母的要求上著鋼琴或小提琴班？反正聽歌劇肯定與你最喜歡的消遣方式無關(guān)，更別說寫歌劇了。而阿爾瑪·多伊徹在11歲時已經(jīng)是位小有名氣的作曲家、鋼琴家兼小提琴演奏家了，因此，人們將小小年紀(jì)卻才華橫溢的多伊徹與同樣天賦異稟的莫扎特相提并論。

多伊徹的音樂天賦與生俱來，她兩歲始練鋼琴，三歲習(xí)得小提琴，四歲嘗試作曲，11歲時已經(jīng)寫出了長篇歌劇《灰姑娘》。多伊徹的音樂靈感或許來得容易，但將零零碎碎的曲調(diào)和諧地融進(jìn)一首首長曲，同時還得為之構(gòu)思出一個跌宕起伏的故事并不簡單。世界首屈一指的指揮家西蒙·拉特爾爵士（Sir Simon Rattle）盛贊多伊徹如“自然之力”一般令人震撼，讓人為之傾倒。下面我們來看看這位音樂神童的故事吧！

A very young classical composer in England is now living her very own fairy tale. Alma Deutscher began playing the piano when she was two and the violin a year later, and now she has written and composed her first opera at just 11 years of age. Her achievements are now drawing2)comparison [k?m?p?r?s(?)n] n. 對比，比較，后常跟介詞with。comparisons with another child3)prodigy [?pr?d?d??] n. 奇才，神童prodigy of some4)repute [r??pju?t] n. 名譽(yù)，聲望repute, Amadeus Mozart’s.

Alma’s opera version of Cinderella premieres in Vienna, where Mozart, in fact,spent much of his adult life.

In a5)rehearsal [r??hз?s(?)l] n. 排演，排練rehearsal packed with talent, one performer6)stick out 突出，醒目sticks out, and not just because she’s 11 years old or because she effortlessly switches between playing the violin and the piano.

Alma Deutscher composed this music,an entire opera. Coming up with the original7)score [sk??(r)] n. （電影、戲劇等演出的）配樂；樂譜score and plot lines for her version of Cinderella took a lot of work, she admits, but she8)juggle [?d??ɡ(?)l] v. 應(yīng)付，兼顧juggled it, as any child prodigy might.

Alma: Well, I got…I actually started this when I was eight, and I now was collecting lots of material for it, and I wrote9)aria [?ɑ?r??] n. 詠嘆調(diào)arias, but it was always at the back of my mind, and10)in between 在……中間，在……期間in between I was writing my violin11)concerto [k?n?t?e?t??] n. 協(xié)奏曲concerto .

Did we mention she’s 11?

Guy Deutscher (Alma’s Father) : She started singing essentially before she started speaking.

Her dad, Guy Deutscher, told us Alma always had creativity bubbling inside her, like a volcano.

Guy: I think the greatest moment is [sic]when we realized that she was playing her own12)melody [?mel?d?] n. 旋律melodies.

Alma: In the beginning, my parents thought that I might just be trying to remember something I’d heard. But I said, “No, no, no,it’s my own. It’s my own melody.”

She says the melodies come to her when she’s most relaxed. Often that’s while playing with her younger sister, Helen, near their home outside London. At a break from rehearsal in Vienna, she showed us her secret.

Interviewer: …a magic13)skipping rope 跳繩用的繩子skipping rope.Alma: Yes.

Interviewer: Why is it magic?

Alma: Well, because, you see, when I wave it around like this and I tell stories in my mind,then a melody sometimes just14)spring [spr??] v. 涌出，涌現(xiàn)springs into my head.

That’s how she came up with parts of her opera.

Interviewer: Tell me about your Cinderella.She’s different.

Alma: Yes, yes, it’s completely [sic] different story because, you see, the whole thing takes place in an opera house…

Which is why Alma’s Cinderella is a composer. She wanted her15)title character 領(lǐng)銜主演，主人公title character to have brains and not just be pretty.

Alma: In my Cinderella...I thought it was a little bit silly that Cinderella was found by a shoe. And why a shoe? But, in my story,then, the prince finds her with a melody, so,when...before Cinderella flees at midnight and she sings the beginning of a ballad.He remembers how it starts but not how it continues, and he’s in despair, he’ll never find her until, finally, he has the16)brainwave [?bre?nwe?v] n. 腦電波，靈感brainwave.He will set everyone in the kingdom and sing the beginning of the melody and only the girl who can finish it in the right way will be the one he’s looking for.

When she wasn’t rehearsing or talking with us, we found she’d grab a book. She says she reads about a hundred of them a year.

Alma explains she has an imaginary music school in her brain. When she skips with that rope, she hears the work of those17)make-believe [?me?kb??li?v] adj. 虛構(gòu)的，虛幻的make-believe composers and simply takes what she likes. She bridges two worlds, and,lucky for the rest of us, shares what she hears,turning make-believe real.

作文素材常積累：阿爾瑪·多伊徹——Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others.

Unfold your own myth. 不要滿足于別人口中的故事，說出你自己的故事！這句出自13世紀(jì)波斯詩人魯米之口的詩句正是多伊徹的寫照。她的《灰姑娘》就來自于她對既有“現(xiàn)實(shí)”的不贊同：為什么只說灰姑娘貌美？為什么非得讓她跟王子通過一只水晶鞋相認(rèn)？正因?yàn)椴粷M足于聽故事，還敢于講故事，年紀(jì)輕輕的多伊徹才創(chuàng)作出了自己的灰姑娘。有時候，天才與普通人之間或許只有“創(chuàng)意”這一墻之隔。繽紛世界盡在眼中，只要敢想，你也可以創(chuàng)作出自己的故事！

詞組：back of my mind

Back of one’s mind的意思是“在某人記憶深處”，即某事不在某人的有意識記憶內(nèi)，指某人不會經(jīng)常想起某事，或?qū)δ呈掠浀貌皇翘貏e清楚，卻在潛意識里有這么一個印象。該詞組既可搭配介詞at，還可搭配in。如：

● Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I’d met him before.（雖然記不太清楚，但我知道我之前見過他。）

● Every night I walk along this street alone, the fear of being attacked is always at the back of my

mind.（每晚我一個人走在這條街上時，我內(nèi)心深處總害怕會被人襲擊。）

參考譯文

一位來自英國的小古典作曲家正譜寫著自己的童話故事。阿爾瑪·多伊徹兩歲開始彈鋼琴，三歲會拉小提琴，如今，11歲的她已完成了自己的第一部歌劇作品。人們把多伊徹的成就與另一位名聞遐邇的音樂神童——莫扎特——相提并論。

阿爾瑪?shù)母鑴“妗痘夜媚铩吩诰S也納舉行首演，這正是成年后的莫扎特生活多年的城市。

在人才濟(jì)濟(jì)的排練現(xiàn)場，有一位演奏者尤其突出，但這并不僅僅是因?yàn)樗?1歲，或是她能毫不費(fèi)力地在小提琴和鋼琴演奏間自由切換。

阿爾瑪·多伊徹是這部音樂作品，也就是整部歌劇的創(chuàng)作者。她坦承：給自己的歌劇《灰姑娘》作曲并設(shè)計(jì)故事情節(jié)的工作量確實(shí)巨大，但就像其他神童一樣，她還算忙得過來。

阿爾瑪：嗯，我……我實(shí)際上從八歲就開始構(gòu)思《灰姑娘》了，當(dāng)時就為此收集了很多資料，我還寫了幾首詠嘆調(diào)，我總是想著它，在這期間，我也在創(chuàng)作小提琴協(xié)奏曲。

我們有提過她才11歲嗎？

蓋伊·多伊徹（阿爾瑪?shù)母赣H）：她在開口說話前就已經(jīng)會唱歌了。

她的父親蓋伊·多伊徹告訴我們，阿爾瑪?shù)哪X子里總是創(chuàng)意不斷，就像一座小火山。

蓋伊：我想，最棒是我們意識到她在演奏自己的原創(chuàng)旋律的那一刻。

阿爾瑪：剛開始的時候，我爸媽以為我只不過在嘗試回憶自己聽過的曲子，但我說：“不不不，這是我自己想出來的，是我自己的旋律。”

她說，這些旋律會在她最放松的時候浮現(xiàn)在腦子里，通常是當(dāng)她跟妹妹海倫在離家不遠(yuǎn)的地方玩耍的時候——她們家就在倫敦市郊。在維也納排練的間歇，她向我們展示了她的秘訣。

采訪者：……一條有魔力的跳繩。

阿爾瑪：沒錯。

采訪者：為什么說它有魔力呢？

阿爾瑪：呃，因?yàn)?，你看，?dāng)我像這樣擺動它時，我就會在心里編造一段故事，然后，有時候，腦海里就會跳出一段旋律。

歌劇的部分內(nèi)容就是這么來的。

采訪者：跟我說說你的《灰姑娘》吧，她是與眾不同的。

阿爾瑪：沒錯，沒錯，這是一個完全不同的故事，因?yàn)槟憧?，整個故事都發(fā)生在一個歌劇院里頭……

因此，阿爾瑪?shù)幕夜媚锸莻€作曲家，她希望她的主人公擁有智慧，而不是空有美貌。

阿爾瑪：在我的《灰姑娘》里……我覺得王子通過一只鞋找到灰姑娘這個情節(jié)有點(diǎn)蠢。為什么是鞋子呢？不過在我的故事里，王子是憑借一段旋律找到她的，就是，當(dāng)……灰姑娘在午夜離開之前，她唱了一首歌謠的開始部分。王子記住了歌謠的開頭，但忘記了接下來的旋律，他以為自己再也找不到她了，因此陷入了絕望。最后，他靈機(jī)一動，召集了王國內(nèi)的所有人，向他們唱了歌謠的開始部分，只有能正確續(xù)上歌謠的女孩才是他的真命天女。

在排練或接受采訪以外的時間里，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)她手中總會拿著一本書。她說，自己一年大概會看100本書。

阿爾瑪解釋說，她腦海里有一所假想的音樂學(xué)校。在跳繩時，她會聽到那些幻想中的作曲家的作品，然后隨意拿走她喜歡的旋律。她能夠連通兩個世界，將虛幻變成現(xiàn)實(shí)并與世人分享，我們這些普通人也有幸分享她所聽到的音樂。