为什么说郎朗回归是古典音乐界一大盛事？

For more than a year, the pianist Lang Lang has been largely out of commission with an injured left arm — a major loss, since he is one of classical music’s biggest and most bankable stars. Google the phrase “superstar concert pianist,” and Mr. Lang’s name pops up right away. He played during the televised opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and jammed with Metallica at the 2014 Grammy Awards.

一年多来，钢琴演奏家郎朗由于左臂受伤基本上无法演出，这是一个很大的损失，因为他是古典音乐最大、最卖座的明星之一。用谷歌搜索“superstar concert pianist”(超级明星 音乐会钢琴家)，郎朗的名字马上呈现在眼前。他曾在全球直播的2008年北京夏季奥运会开幕式上演奏，并在2014年的格莱美颁奖典礼上与Metallica乐队飚琴。

But Mr. Lang has retained establishment cred, remaining one of the handful of go-to stars for opening night and gala concerts at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. His return to the stage on Friday — to headline the season opener at Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home in the Berkshires — is being closely watched not only by his fans, but also by the music industry.

不过，郎朗保持着在业界的地位，仍是为数不多的几位林肯中心(Lincoln Center)和卡内基音乐厅(Carnegie Hall)开幕夜和庆典音乐会首选明星之一。因此，他本周五重返舞台——为波士顿交响乐团(Boston Symphony Orchestra)在伯克希尔丘陵夏季驻地唐格尔伍德的演出季首演中担纲——不仅受到他的粉丝们的密切关注，也受到音乐界的密切关注。

“Everyone needs Lang Lang to come back and do what he does in such a unique fashion,” said Mark Volpe, the Boston Symphony’s managing director. “I don’t just mean playing the piano; I mean the bigger picture. There are other great pianists, but he has a personality, he’s got a presence.”

“每个人都需要郎朗回来，用那种独特的方式做他擅长的事情，”波士顿交响乐团团长马克·沃尔普(Mark Volpe)说。“我不只是指弹钢琴;我指的是更大的东西。伟大的钢琴家有很多，但他有个性，有风度。”

How was he injured?

他是怎么受伤的?

In April 2017, Mr. Lang announced that he had an inflammation in his left arm and planned to cancel a few months of concerts. He has been on a severely curtailed schedule ever since.

2017年4月，郎朗宣布他的左臂有炎症，打算取消几个月的演出安排。从那以后，他的表演日程一直大受限制。

He said last year that he had injured his arm through what he described as “a stupid practice of Ravel’s left-hand concerto.” He was referring to the concerto the French composer Maurice Ravel wrote for Paul Wittgenstein, a pianist who had lost his right arm during World War I. (Mr. Lang declined a request for an interview about his return.)

他去年说，在一次被他描述为“愚蠢地练习拉威尔左手协奏曲”时，伤了自己的手臂。他指的是法国作曲家莫里斯·拉威尔(Maurice Ravel)为在第一次世界大战中失去了右臂的钢琴家保罗·维特根斯坦(Paul Wittgenstein)创作的那首协奏曲。(郎朗拒绝了关于他重返舞台的采访请求)。

“I was not paying so much attention, I was already tiring, and I pushed to practice,” Mr. Lang said. He added that he had worked too fast to teach himself an unfamiliar, unusual work because he was on a tight deadline, with several orchestras waiting to hear if he would perform the piece with them.

“我没太注意，我已经很累了，但我还是坚持练习，”郎朗说。他补充说，他在自学这个不熟悉也不寻常的作品时操之过急，因为当时留给他的时间不多，几个管弦乐队在等待，想知道他能否与他们一起演奏这首曲子。

Playing the piano requires speed, power, dexterity and flexibility. Injuries are not uncommon. The pianist Leon Fleisher was establishing himself as one of America’s pre-eminent young artists in the 1950s and ’60s when he found himself unable to control his right hand — which he attributed to “seven or eight hours a day of pumping ivory.” Gary Graffman, Mr. Lang’s teacher at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, had his career as a top-flight concert pianist curtailed by finger problems.

弹钢琴需要速度、力量、灵巧和柔韧。受伤并不少见。20世纪50年代、60年代，当钢琴家利昂·弗莱舍(Leon Fleisher)正在成为美国杰出的年轻艺术家之一时，他发现他无法控制自己的右手——他将其归因于“每天七八个小时的练习”。郎朗在费城柯蒂斯音乐学院(Curtis Institute of Music)的老师加里·格拉夫曼(Gary Graffman)的顶级钢琴演奏家职业生涯因手指问题而中断。

Why is the classical world watching so closely?

为什么古典音乐界如此密切地关注?

It is harder than ever for a classical musician to become famous worldwide. The recording industry, with its promotional machinery, is a shadow of its former self. Fans can more than ever choose what they listen to — and filter out everything else. Breaking through the way Mr. Lang has over the past 20 years is rare.

如今一个古典音乐家要在世界范围内成名比以往任何时候都难。唱片产业连同其宣传机器早已今非昔比。音乐爱好者们在选择他们想听的东西——同时把其他的一切过滤掉——也空前的便利。像郎朗这样在过去20年里异军突起很罕见。

The select group of artists who can still sell out concerts on the strength of their names includes Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell and Renée Fleming — and Mr. Lang.

为数不多的艺术家仍可凭借自己名字的魅力卖光音乐会的门票，他们中包括马友友、伊扎克·帕尔曼(Itzhak Perlman)、约书亚·贝尔(Joshua Bell)和蕾妮·弗莱明(Renee Fleming)——以及郎朗。

“In the good old days, there used to be a lot of those, 25, 30, 40 years ago — people who could sell benefits, sell pension fund concerts,” said Thomas W. Morris, who ran the Cleveland Orchestra and the Boston Symphony. “There are a lot less of them today, so when he’s not around, it’s felt.”

“在往昔的好日子里，比如25年、30年、40年前，有很多这样的人，他们开慈善音乐会、养老金音乐会，票房都能很好，”托马斯·W·莫里斯(Thomas W. Morris)说，他曾是克利夫兰交响乐团和波士顿交响乐团的负责人。“如今，这样的人为数不多了，所以他不在的时候，大家会感觉到。”

Take opening night galas, which are typically important fund-raisers for orchestras, with high ticket prices and programs designed to appeal to donors and trustees. In the two years before his injury, Mr. Lang played 10 opening galas with major American orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony.

以开幕夜盛会为例，那通常是管弦乐队重要的筹款机会，票价高，曲目的选择以吸引捐赠者和董事会成员为主。在受伤前的两年里，郎朗参演了包括纽约爱乐乐团(New York Philharmonic)和波士顿交响乐团(Boston Symphony)在内的美国几个主要交响乐团的十场演出季首演盛会。

What has he been up to over the past year?

他这一年在忙些什么?

Mr. Lang is such a draw that he was invited to play the opening night concert at Carnegie Hall last October — even after he was restricted to a single hand. One of his protégés, Maxim Lando, who was 14 at the time, sat beside him and served as his left hand in a truly unusual two-piano, five-hand arrangement of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with the jazz pianist Chick Corea. The audience went wild; the critics, less so.

郎朗太有吸引力了，去年10月，他受邀在卡内基音乐厅的首场音乐会上演奏——尽管那时他只能用一只手弹琴。他的门生之一、当时只有14岁的马克西姆·兰多(Maxim Lando)坐在他身边，为他当左手，他们和爵士钢琴演奏家奇克·柯里亚(Chick Corea)一起，表演了一场非同寻常的用两架钢琴、五只手演奏的格什温《蓝色狂想曲》(Rhapsody in Blue)。观众欣喜若狂;批评家们则不以为然。

As he canceled more concerts, some wondered if his career was over. The South China Morning Post wrote an article with the headline “Will Chinese star pianist Lang Lang have to call it quits because of arm injury?”

随着他取消了更多的音乐会，一些人想知道他的职业生涯是否已经结束。《南华早报》发表的一篇文章用了这样的题目：“中国明星钢琴演奏家郎朗将因手臂受伤告别舞台吗?”

Mr. Graffman said that Mr. Lang had been diligent in his recovery, and that he had encouraged his former pupil to heed the advice of his doctors. “If the doctor said 20 minutes, don’t play half an hour,” Mr. Graffman said.

格拉夫曼说，郎朗在康复过程中一直很努力，他劝告自己这名从前的学生听医生的话。“如果医生说20分钟，就不要弹半小时，”格拉夫曼说。

What do the critics think?

评论家们怎么看?

Though he thrills audiences and has drawn widespread praise for his dazzling technique, Mr. Lang has not always been loved by critics. Some find his expressive gestures showy or mannered. Anthony Tommasini, the chief classical music critic of The New York Times, wrote of a 2003 concert at Carnegie Hall that “for all its color, flair and energy, his playing was often incoherent, self-indulgent and slam-bang crass.”

尽管郎朗让观众痴迷，他令人陶醉的演技引起人们的广泛称赞，但他并不总是受到评论家的喜爱。有些人觉得他富于表情的演奏很花哨或做作。《纽约时报》的首席古典音乐评论家安东尼·托马西尼(Anthony Tommasini)为2003年卡内基音乐厅的一场音乐会写的评论里有这样的话，“虽然充满了音乐色彩、表演魅力，且活力四射，但他的演奏常常是不连贯的、自我放纵的、重敲猛击的粗俗表演。”

But Mr. Tommasini was more favorably impressed by a 2008 concert when Mr. Lang played Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the New York Philharmonic in Central Park: “He vanquished the technical challenges, playing with utter command and disarming joy, bringing out inner voices and rhythmic syncopations that caught his ear.”

但托马西尼对2008年郎朗在纽约中央公园与纽约爱乐乐团演奏柴可夫斯基第一钢琴协奏曲的那场音乐会有更好的印象：“他完全征服了技术挑战，弹得无比轻松，带着令人心旷神怡的乐趣，把作品的内在声音和他的耳朵感受到的切分节拍表现了出来。”

Top-flight orchestras respect him and line up to work with him. Mr. Morris remembered a performance of Bartok’s Second Concerto, “which is a bear, and, my goodness me, his command of that was staggering.” In this sense, he is different from classical crossover artists like the singer Andrea Bocelli and the violinist André Rieu, who don’t generally appear with major ensembles.

一流的管弦乐队尊重他，排着队要和他一起表演。莫里斯还记得一次巴托克第二协奏曲的演奏，那“是一部不好对付的曲子，我的天哪，他的演奏能力真是惊人。”从这个意义上说，郎朗不同于其他的跨界古典音乐演奏家，比如歌唱家安德烈·波切利(Andrea Bocelli)和小提琴家安德烈·里欧(Andre Rieu)，这两人通常不会与主要交响乐团合作。

What’s next?

接下来会发生什么?

Mr. Lang was originally scheduled to play Tchaikovsky’s First Concerto, with its bravura Romantic gestures, to open Tanglewood’s season. But he decided instead on Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, which requires crisp, clear articulation along with style and elegance.

郎朗原本打算在唐格尔伍德演出季首演上演奏柴可夫斯基的第一协奏曲，该曲以精彩的浪漫派姿态闻名。但他最终选择了莫扎特的《C小调第24号钢琴协奏曲》，它需要果敢、清晰的表达，也需要气韵和优雅。

He will stay with Mozart for his next scheduled concerts, including the opening of the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland on Aug. 17. More galas (and more Mozart) are scheduled for the fall — including the Cleveland Orchestra’s 100th anniversary concert, conducted by an early supporter, Franz Welser-Möst.

在接下来的几场已经安排好的演出中，郎朗将继续演奏莫扎特的曲子，包括8月17日在瑞士举行的卢塞恩音乐节的首场演出。今年秋天还会在更多的庆典音乐会上听到郎朗(以及更多的莫扎特曲目)，包括克利夫兰交响乐团庆祝100周年的音乐会，担任这场音乐会指挥的是郎朗的早期支持者弗朗茨·威尔瑟-莫斯特(Franz Welser-Möst)。

Mr. Lang signed with Universal Music Group just before his hiatus, after a seven-year stint with Sony Classical as his label. “For our perspective,” said Dickon Stainer, in charge of Universal’s global classics division, “we’re particularly thrilled that in two weeks’ time he’s going to the studio in Beijing to make his first record for us since his return.”

郎朗在演出计划被打断前刚刚与环球唱片(Universal Music Group)签约，此前他与索尼古典音乐(Sony Classical)合作了七年。环球唱片全球经典部主管迪康·斯泰纳(Dickon Stainer)说，“从我们的角度来看，我们特别高兴的是，两周后，他将进入北京的录音棚，为我们录制他重返舞台后的第一张唱片。”