2011 阅读1
Selling Classical Music
The decision of the New York Philharmonic to hire Alan Gilbert as its next music director has been the talk of the classical-music world ever since the sudden announcement in July of his appointment to succeed Lorin Maazel in 2009. For the most part, the response has been favorable, to say the least. "Hooray! At last!" wrote Anthony Tommasini, the sober-sided classical-music critic of the New York Times.
the New York Philharmonic 纽约爱乐乐团
appointment 任命
sober-sided solemn or serious in nature or appearance
One of the reasons why the appointment came as such a surprise, however, is that Gilbert is comparatively little known. He is chief conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and recently spent three years as music director of the Santa Fe Opera. Both posts are undeniably important, but neither can fairly be described as a high-profile job. And while Gilbert has also led the New York Philharmonic in 31 concerts since making his debut with the orchestra six years ago, these appearances, though they were for the most part well received by critics and concertgoers, did not win for him anything remotely approaching universal acclaim.
high-profile 高姿态的，知名度高的
debut 初次登台
Even Tommasini, who had advocated Gilbert's appointment in the Times, calls him "an unpretentious musician with no whiff of the formidable maestro about him." As a description of the next music director of an orchestra that has hitherto been led by (among others) Gustav Mahler, Willem Mengelberg, Arturo Toscanini, Sir John Barbirolli, Bruno Walter, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Leonard Bernstein, and Pierre Boulez, that seems likely to have struck at least some Times readers as faint praise.
unpretentious 低调的，谦逊的
whiff a trace or hint of something bad, menacing（威胁）, or exciting
formidable 难克服的，令人望而生畏的
maestro 大师
strike cause someone to have a particular impression
it struck him that Marjorie was unusually silent 他感到玛乔丽异常的沉默
the idea struck her as odd 那个想法让他感到很奇怪
damn someone/something with faint praise Praise someone or something so unenthusiastically as to imply condemnation.
夸赞历来由音乐大家挂帅的乐团的新任掌门是“谦逊的”、“没有令人生畏的大师派头”，这听起来不像是一种赞美，反而更像是对其声望、能力的怀疑。
For my part, I have no idea whether Gilbert is a great conductor or even a good one. I have never seen him conduct, or listened to any of the handful of recordings he has made to date. Nothing that I read about his Philharmonic concerts made me feel any urgent need to go and hear them. To be sure, he performs an impressive variety of interesting compositions, but it is not necessary for me to visit Avery Fisher Hall, or anywhere else, to hear interesting orchestral music. All I have to do is go to my CD shelf, or boot up my computer and download still more recorded music from iTunes.
就我而言，我不知道 Gilbert 是不是一位伟大的指挥，甚至算不算是个好指挥。
to date 迄今为止 HITHERTO
Devoted concertgoers who reply that recordings are no substitute for live performance are missing the point. For the time, attention, and money of the art-loving public, classical instrumentalists must compete not only with opera houses, dance troupes, theater companies, and museums, but also with the recorded performances of the great classical musicians of the 20th century. These recordings are cheap, ubiquitously available, and very often much higher in artistic quality than today's live performances; moreover, they can be "consumed" at a time and place of the listener's choosing. The widespread availability of such recordings of the standard repertory has thus brought about a crisis in the institution of the traditional classical concert, one to which most classical musicians have been fatally slow to respond.
troupe 剧团
ubiquitous 普遍的，无处不在的
repertory REPERTOIRE
One possible response is for classical performers to program attractive new music that is not yet available on record. Gilbert's own interest in new music has been widely noted: Alex Ross, the classical-music critic of the New Yorker, has described him as "a man with an inquisitive, contemporary mind" who is capable of turning the Philharmonic into "a markedly different, more vibrant organization." But what will be the nature of that difference? Merely tinkering with the orchestra's repertoire will not be enough. If Gilbert and the Philharmonic are to succeed, they must first change the relationship between America's oldest orchestra and the new audience it hopes to attract.
inquisitive 好奇的，好问的
vibrant 充满活力的，活跃的
tinkering 马马虎虎或徒劳无益地修补
