It has been said by some experts that to understand Poland you must understand the composer Frederic Chopin.
有好些專家說過,要想了解波蘭,就得了解作曲家弗雷德里克·肖邦。
The creative geniu one of the most original of the 19th century, was born outside Warsaw in 1810 to a French father and Polish mother and in a proud nation suffering under partition and divided among occupying Russian Prussians and Austrians.
這位才華洋溢的天才是19世紀最具獨創性的作曲家之一,其父親是法國人,而母親則是波蘭人,于1810年出生于華沙的近郊;而當時,波蘭,這個國人為之自豪的國度卻正被俄羅斯,普魯士以及奧地利各方豪強割據而深受分裂之苦。
Thirteen years before Chopin was born, the occupying powers even abolished the very name "Poland". The country had been crucified, as the poets of the Romantic era put it, awaiting a resurrection which did not occur until 1918.
在肖邦出生的十三年前,這些割據勢力竟然把“波蘭”這個名字都廢除了。正如浪漫時期的詩人所說的那樣,這片大地仿若被釘上了十字架般受盡磨難,等待著復活的一天,而直到1918年,它才重獲新生。
The always short and physically frail Frederic Chopin moved with his family to Warsaw as a newborn and lived there until he was 20 when he left his homeland for good. Yet although he spent almost half of his life in Pari traditional Polish music permeates his compositions and he always considered Warsaw his hometown. From Warsaw's historic Old Town down Krakowskie Przedmiescie Street, along the Royal Way to Lazienki Park, you can walk down the same streets young Frederic strolled, past palaces and churches in which he gave performances.
身材矮小,身體羸弱的弗雷德里 克·肖邦還是新生兒的時候就隨家人來到了華沙,直到二十歲那年他才離開了祖國,再也沒回來。盡管他幾乎半生都身處巴黎,然而傳統的波蘭音樂深入到他的作品,而他也一直視華沙為自己的故里。從華沙歷史悠久的老城區到克拉科夫郊區街,沿著皇家之路到瓦金基公園,你能踏上這些年少的肖邦曾經徜徉徘徊的街道,經過那些他曾經在里面演奏過的宮殿和教堂。
And the city never ceased being proud of him either. The $28 million, interactive Fryderyk Chopin Museum opened last March to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the composer's birth. Originally a two-roomed museum with dank gloomy basements in the city's 17th Century Ostrogski Castle, it has been transformed into a five-storey exhibition which makes good use of modern technology to tell the story of one of the greatest pianists in history.
而這座城市一直也以他為榮。耗資2.8億美元,開放互動式的弗雷德里克·肖邦博物館于去年三月開幕,旨在紀念這位音樂家誕辰200周年。原來的博物館位于17世紀的奧斯拙斯基皇宮,有兩個展室和一間陰暗潮濕的地下室。如今,它已經被修整為一座擁有五層展廳的博物館,還將現代科技很好地結合在一起,把歷史上其中一位最偉大的音樂家的生平展現給眾人。
Visitors are given a plastic ticket which, once swiped past the blue light readers at the entrance, can be used to access information on touch screens in eight languages.
游客可以得到一張塑料入場券,只要在門口藍光的讀卡器刷過,就可以憑此在擁有八種語言的觸屏電腦上獲取各類信息。
In the cavernous brick vaults of the basement you can select an etude (a musical composition), place the score on a glass panel above the keys of a 19th-century piano that belonged to Franz Liszt and listen as a pianist's hands play the piece on a wall projection.
在一個如山洞似的磚砌拱頂地下室里,你可以選擇一首練習曲,在一臺十九世紀時屬于弗朗茨·李斯特的鋼琴前,把樂譜放在琴鍵上方的一塊玻璃面板上,然后聆聽,同時,墻上的投影會現出一位鋼琴大師彈奏樂曲的畫面。
"It's kind of a holy place," Keiko Kondo, a visitor from Japan told me beside the piano. "Lots of people say Chopin is very romantic and delicate. I don't think so. I feel a power and a strength," she said.
“這里猶如一座圣殿,”來自日本的游客近藤景子站在鋼琴旁邊跟我說道。“很多人都認為肖邦生性浪漫,為人敏感。我不這樣認為。我感受到的是一種力量與韌勁,”她說。