“Culture can do everything to dispel fear”——马友友对每首组曲的解读

特别喜欢这张封面图

在专辑发行前的采访里，六十五岁的马友友说，他始终在思考，当我们聚在一起时，能共同做些什么，他想让这些演奏成为人们彼此对话的开场白，然后让对话成为行动。“I think culture can do everything to dispel fear. Because fear makes us smaller, culture makes us larger. And that’s what we need.”接着，他开启了跨越六大洲的环球巡演The Bach Project，时至今日仍在进行。

马友友为每首组曲都加上了标题，分别是“Nature At Play”、“Journey To Light”、“Celebration”、“Building”、“Struggle For Hope”和“Epiphany”。他用语言和琴弦，诠释自己的理解，并将此传递给听众。这份对文化、自然以及彼此联结的信念，在充斥着各种负面消息的当下，显得平和而珍贵。

听这张专辑时，我总能得到片刻抽离，而当再次回到现实，那些离间着我与世界的恐惧，似乎真的被驱散了一些。

——以下内容包含马友友对每首组曲的介绍，深度解读了他的诠释，摘录翻译自apple music

“What power does this music possess,” Yo-Yo Ma pondered on his website before the release of this, his third recording of Bach’s cello suites, “that even today, after 300 years, it continues to help us navigate through troubled times?” There’s no doubt that he answered his own question eloquently and powerfully in these performances.

“这些音乐究竟有什么样的力量，让它在 300 年后的今天，仍然能帮我们在多事之秋找到方向？”马友友在他第三次录制巴赫大提琴组曲的专辑发行之前，在自己的网站上发出了这样的疑问。毫无疑问，他通过演奏，雄辩般有力地回答了自己提出的问题。

For Ma, who still regularly performs this music in concert, Bach’s music contains “infinite variety” in which the composer strives “to understand everything a cello can do”. He tells of how the composer wrote the six cello suites during the only time in his life that he wasn’t working for the church. “I think of those years as his sabbatical years,” he says. “In other words, the years when he would have fun in saying, ‘What can I do with a lab where I can try all these experiments?’” In the suites, adds Ma, Bach experiments not just with the capabilities of the cello itself, but with music’s power to express the inexpressible, to tap even into ideas of nature and humanity.

马友友仍会经常在音乐厅表演这些曲目。在他看来，巴赫的音乐包含了“无穷的变化”，作曲家在其中尽力想要“理解大提琴能做到的一切”。他指出，巴赫在一生中仅有的未供职于教堂的时期，创作了这 6 首大提琴组曲。“我把这些年看成他的假期。”他表示，“换句话说，他可以在这些年里享受尝试的乐趣：‘这里有一个实验室，我可以在里面做各种实验，那我该做点什么呢？’”马友友表示，巴赫在这些组曲里不仅实验了大提琴的表达能力，也尝试用音乐去借助自然和人性的概念，表达“不可表达”之意。

Read on as Yo-Yo guides us through each of the suites and offers an insight into his interpretations.

以下，马友友为我们介绍了每首组曲，深度解读了他的诠释：

Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major

“Suite No. 1 is the very first Suite I learned when I was four years old. For me, it describes always something in nature or water—something of infinite variety. But there’s an interesting thing that happens in the music of the opening movement. It stops in the middle and then rebuilds stronger. That’s part of the storyline that Bach experiments with over and over again, and is not unlike what we do in society.”

《Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major》

“《第 1 号组曲》就是我 4 岁时学习演奏的第一首组曲。我一直认为它描述的是自然中的某种东西，或者水——某种有无穷变化的东西。这首曲子的第一乐章里有一个地方很有意思：它在中间停顿了一下，然后更强地重建起来。这是巴赫反复尝试的故事情节展现的一部分，和我们从日常生活中获得的感受吻合。”

Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor

“The first movement of this Suite is actually the very first piece I performed as a five-year-old in Paris. Like many of the suites, No. 2 has a head, heart and hands structure, with the fourth movement Sarabande being the heart, the legs being the Menuets and the Gigue. In the first movement, again, there’s a breakdown. You can hear someone trying, trying, trying to get to somewhere, but being somewhat beaten down, even though the music keeps striving. The suite, however, ends with a note of hope. To this day, it is one of my favourite suites.”

《Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor》

“这首组曲的第一乐章就是我 5 岁时在巴黎首次登台表演演奏的第一首曲子。和其他很多组曲一样，《第 2 号组曲》也是头、心、手的结构。第四乐章萨拉班德是心脏，小步舞曲和吉格舞曲是腿。第一乐章再次出现了停顿。你可以听到有人在很努力地想去到某个地方，但总是被打断，尽管音乐继续发展。不过这首曲子是以希望的调子结尾的。直到今天，它都是我最喜欢的组曲之一。”

Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 3 in C Major

“It’s so wonderful when you find a piece of music that is just about pure joy. Joy and celebration. Joy and celebration of human achievement. Joy and celebration of what nature’s bounty gives us. In Suite No. 3, you have the fullness of this expression—which is part of Bach’s wish to understand everything that a cello can do.”

《Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 3 in C Major》

“当你发现一首关于纯粹快乐的音乐时，真是太美妙了。喜悦和庆祝。对人类成就的喜悦和庆祝。对大自然给予我们恩赐的喜悦和庆祝。想要理解大提琴能做到的一切，是巴赫的愿望之一，而在《第 3号组曲》中，你能感受到对此丰满的表达。”

Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 4 in E-Flat Major

“After three suites, Bach thinks he knows the cello completely, but then he asks himself the question, ‘Can the cello do what I want it to do?’ Starting at Suite No. 4, he expands what the instrument can do, but he starts to fool around with structures and takes you into strange places. It’s an amazing achievement. With this suite, we get taken into amazing territory.”

《Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 4 in E-Flat Major》

“在三组曲之后，巴赫认为他完全了解大提琴，但随后他问了自己一个问题，'大提琴能做我想做的事吗？'从《第4 号组曲》开始，他扩展了乐器的作用，他开始玩弄结构，将你带到陌生的地方。这是一项了不起的成就。随着这一组曲，我们被带入令人惊叹的领域。”

Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 5 in C Minor

“We know Bach was frustrated with certain pipe organs, that they weren’t able to do enough—but it was also true with the cello. By the time you get to Suite No. 5, he decides that he wants more richness. But the cello can’t do it, so you know what he does? He tunes down a string, and that allows him to explore emotional content. And he expands the form—instead of the Prélude being purely an improvisation, he puts a fugue in it, the most complex way to organise music of that era. Then each of the following dance movements goes through a wormhole that takes you into different dimensions.”

《Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 5 in C Minor》

“我们知道巴赫对管风琴感到沮丧，它们做得不够——但大提琴也是如此。当来到《第5 号组曲》时，他决定要让音乐更加丰富丰满。但大提琴做不到，所以你知道他做了什么吗？他调低了一根弦，这使他能够探索情绪。他扩展了形式——不再将纯粹的即兴演奏作为前奏曲，而是在其中加入赋格曲取而代之，这是那个时代最复杂的音乐组织形式。于是，接下来的每个舞曲乐章都会穿过一个虫洞，将你带入不同的维度。”

Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major

“Bach thinks he knows everything about the cello, but he wants it to do more. So he wrote the Sixth Suite for a cello with an extra string. He found an instrument to fulfil his desire. We play it on the cello, but it takes us into the higher reaches of the instrument, which are very hard to do. The purpose of doing that is not for technique, but it’s to create architecture. This is the suite where he reaches for the heavens, and he gets you to the sublime, he gets you to transcendence, he gets you to cosmic celebration. It is an unbelievable achievement. After he finishes the Sixth, he doesn’t write a seventh because the seventh is there for rest. It’s the Sabbath.”

《Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major》

“巴赫认为他知道关于大提琴的一切，但他仍希望它能做得更多。因此，他用一根额外的弦为大提琴写了《第6号组曲》。他找到了一种乐器来实现愿望。我们用大提琴演奏它，而它将我们带到了乐器的新高度，这很难做到。这样做的目的不是为了技术，而是为了创造建筑。这是他伸向天堂的组曲，他带领你走向壮丽、卓绝、宇宙的庆典。这是一项令人难以置信的成就。在他完成《第6号组曲》后，他并没有继续创作下去，因为“7”是用来休息的。第七天是安息日。”