A Portrait of Handel(Excerpt)

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They used to call him the Great Bear.He was gigantic: broad, corpulent,with big hands and enormous feet; his arms and thighs were stupendous.His hands were so fat that the bones disappeared in the flesh, forming dimples.He walked bow-legged, with a heavy, rolling gait, very erect, with his head thrown back under its huge white wig, whose curls rippled heavily over his shoulders.He had a long horse-like face, which with age became bovine2bovine牛的。and swamped in fat; with pendant cheeks and triple chin, the nose large, thick and straight, the ears red and long.His gaze was very direct; there was a quizzical gleam in his bold eye, a mocking twist at the corner of his large, finelycut mouth.His air was impressive and jovial.When he smiled—says Burney—“his heavy, stern countenance was radiant with a flash of intelligence and wit; like the sun emerging from a cloud.”

[2]He was full of humour.He had a“sly pseudo-simplicity”which made the most solemn individuals laugh though he himself showed an unsmiling face.No one ever told a story better.“His happy way of saying the simplest things differently from anyone else gave them an amusing complexion.If his English had been as good as Swift3喬納森·斯威夫特（1667—1745），英國著名文學家、諷刺作家、政治家，代表作有寓言小說《格列佛游記》?！痵, hisbons mots4bons mots妙語雋言。would have been equally abundant and of the same kind.”But“really to enjoy what he said one had almost to know four languages: English, French, Italian and German, all of which he mixed up together.”

[3]This medley of tongues was as much due to the fashion in which his vagabond youth was moulded, while he wandered through the countries of Western Europe, as to his natural impetuosity, which; when he sought a rejoinder5rejoinder反駁。, seized upon all the words at his disposal.He was like Berlioz: musical notation6musical notation記譜法。was too slow for him;he would have needed a shorthand to follow his thought; at the beginning of his great choral compositions he wrote the motifs in full for all the parts; as he proceeded he would drop first one part,then another; finally he would retain only one voice, or he would even end up with the bass alone; he would pass at a stroke to the end of the composition which he had begun, postponing until later the completion of the whole, and on the morrow of finishing one piece he would begin another, sometimes working on two, if not three, simultaneously.

[4]He would never have had the patience of Gluck, who began, before writing, by“going through each of his acts, and then the whole piece; which commonly cost him”—so he told Corancez—“a year, and oftener than not a serious illness.”—Handel used to compose an act before he had learned how the piece continued, and sometimes before the librettist7librettist歌詞作者。had time to write it.

[5]The urge to create was so tyrannical that it ended by isolating him from the rest of the world.“He never allowed himself to be interrupted by any futile visit”says Hawkins,“and his impatience to be delivered of the ideas which continually flooded his mind kept him almost always shut up.”His brain was never idle;and whatever he might be doing, he was no longer conscious of his surroundings.He had a habit of speaking so loudly that everybody learned what he was thinking.And what exaltation, what tears, as he wrote! He sobbed aloud when he was composing the ariaHe was despised.—“Ihave heard it said”reports Shield,“that when his servant took him his chocolate in the morning he was often surprised to see him weeping and wetting with his tears the paper on which he was writing.”—With regard to theHallelujahchorus of theMessiahhe himself cited the words of St.Paul:“Whether I was in my body or out of my body as I wrote it I know not.God knows.”

[6]This huge mass of flesh was shaken by fi ts of fury.He swore almost with every phrase.In the orchestra,“when his great white periwig8periwig假發。was seen to quiver the musicians trembled.”When his choirs were inattentive he had a way of shouting Chorus! at them in a terrible voice that made the public jump.Even at the rehearsals of his oratorios9oratorio清唱劇。at Carlton House, before the Prince of Wales, if the Prince and Princess did not appear punctually he took no trouble to conceal his anger; and if the ladies of the Court had the misfortune to talk during the performance he was not satisfied with cursing and swearing, but addressed them furiously by name.“Chut, chut!”the Princess would say on these occasions, with her usual indulgence:“Handel is spiteful!”

[7]Spiteful he was not.“He was rough and peremptory,”says Burney,“but entirely without malevolence.”There was,in his most violent fi ts of anger, a touch of originality which, together with his bad English, made them absolutely comical.Like Lully and Gluck, he had the gift of command; and like them he combined an irascible10irascible易怒的，性情暴躁的。violence that overcame all opposition with a witty good nature which, though wounding to vanity had the power of healing the wounds which it had caused.“At his rehearsals he was an arbitrary person; but his remarks and even his reprimands were full of an extremely droll humour.”At the time when the opera in London was a field of battle between the supporters of the Faustina and those of the Cuzzoni, and when the twoprime donne11prima donne首席女演員。seized one another by the hair in the middle of a performance,patronised by the Princess of Wales, to the roars of the house, a farce by Colley Gibber, who dramatized this historic bout of fi sticuffs, represented Handel as the only person who remained cool in the midst of the uproar.“To my thinking”he said“one should leave them to fi ght it out in peace.If you want to make an end of it throw oil on the fire.When they are tired their fury will abate of itself.”And in order that the battle should end the sooner he expedited it with great blows on the kettledrum12kettledrum定音鼓。.

[8]Even when he flew into a rage people felt that he was laughing in his sleeve.Thus, when he seized the irascible Cuzzoni, who refused to sing one of his airs, by the waist, and, carrying her to the window, threatened to throw her into the street, he said, with a bantering air:“Now, madame, I know very well that you are a regular she-devil; but I’ll make you realise that I am Beelzebub the prince of devils!”

[9]All his life he enjoyed a wonderful amount of freedom.He hated all restrictions and avoided all official appointments; for we cannot so describe his position of teacher to the princesses; the important musical posts about the Court and the fat pensions were never bestowed upon him, even after his naturalisation as an English citizen; they were conferred upon indifferent composers.He took no pains to humour these; he spoke of his English colleagues with contemptuous sarcasm.Indifferently educated, apart from music, he despised academics and academic musicians.He was not a doctor of Oxford University, although the degree was offered to him.It is recorded that he complained:“What the devil!Should I have had to spend my money in order to be like those idiots? Never in this world!”■

人們習慣把亨德爾稱為“大熊”。他身材魁梧，肩膀寬大，粗手大腳；手臂和雙腿壯健有力。亨德爾雙手肥胖、肉不露骨，手背上滿是小坑。他走路時兩腿張開，步伐沉重，左右搖擺，上身挺拔，頭向后仰，頂著大號的白色假發，濃密的發卷沉甸甸地垂在肩上。他原本臉長如馬，隨著年齡漸長，變成了牛臉；他面孔臃腫，雙頰下垂，下巴有三層厚，鼻子粗厚筆直，大耳朵紅通通的。亨德爾目光直率，炯炯有神的眼睛里閃爍著好奇的光芒，有棱有角的嘴唇旁浮現出一絲笑紋。他神態活潑，令人難忘。伯尼說，當他微笑時，“嚴厲堅毅的面容流露出聰明機智的神情，猶如云中升起的太陽”。

[2]亨德爾富有幽默感。他有一派“貌似天真的狡黠神態”，自己一本正經板著面孔，卻能把嚴肅持重的人逗得哈哈大笑。沒有人比得上他講故事的本領。“他能把平凡無奇的瑣事講得與眾不同，讓別人聽得津津有味。倘若亨德爾的英語說得和斯威夫特一樣好，那他的連珠妙語肯定和斯威夫特一樣多。你要想欣賞他講的故事，差不多要懂得四種語言：英語、法語、意大利語和德語，他總是把這些語言混雜在一起講?！?/p>

[3]多種語言的混雜要歸結于他年輕時養成的習慣，當時他四處游蕩，足跡遍布西歐各國；同時也是他沖動狂熱的天性使然，他急于接腔反駁的時候，想到什么語言就說什么。他像柏遼茲一樣：覺得常用的記譜法太慢，需要一種速記法來跟上自己的思路；在譜寫大型合唱曲的時候，一開始就寫出所有聲部的主題，寫的過程中會寫一個聲部拋一個，接著寫下一個，最后只保留一個聲部，甚或單獨以低音部結束；開始作曲的時候，會一口氣寫到尾聲，然后推遲一段時間把整部作品寫完，一首曲子剛完成，就緊接著寫下一首，有時候還同時寫兩三首曲子。

[4]他從來沒有格魯克那樣的耐心，格魯克告訴科朗斯，他在動筆之前，“對每一幕都仔細斟酌，然后再把全劇銜接起來；這通常要花上一年的光景，多半還得害他生一場大病”。亨德爾常常是寫出了一幕歌劇后，還不知道下面的曲調如何譜寫，有時寫完了一幕，下一幕的歌詞還沒有著落。

[5]他的創作欲望非常強烈，以至于他最終選擇與世隔絕。霍金斯說：“他從來不允許自己受到無聊來訪的打擾，為了記錄下腦海中不斷涌現的構思，他幾乎閉門不出。”他的思想從不懈??；不論在做什么事情，他都會忘記身邊的環境。他習慣于大聲喧嘩，所以人們都知道他在想什么。他創作的時候，時而欣喜若狂，時而痛哭流涕！他在譜寫詠嘆調《他受人鄙視》的時候，竟然會嚎啕大哭。希爾德講述道：“我聽說仆人早上給他送熱可可的時候，時常驚訝地發現亨德爾感動得淚流滿面，淚水打濕了他的手稿?！闭劦健稄涃悂啞返摹豆穪啞反蠛铣?，亨德爾引用圣保羅的話說：“在創作的過程中，我根本不知道到底是我自己在作曲，還是天降異象。只有上帝知道?！?/p>

[6]亨德爾大發雷霆時，龐大的身軀會氣得瑟瑟發抖，嘴里不停地賭咒罵人。在管弦樂隊里，“每當看到他那副大號的白色假發晃來蕩去，樂手們就會渾身哆嗦”。每當合唱團員稍有疏忽，亨德爾就會朝著他們大喊一聲“合唱團！”，咆哮如雷的喊聲會把人們嚇得跳起來。甚至在卡爾頓宮排演清唱劇時，當著威爾士親王的面，如果親王公主不準時駕到，他也毫不掩飾自己的怒氣；倘若宮廷貴婦敢在演出過程中說長道短，他不但會賭咒發誓，還會怒不可遏地指名道姓。遇上這種時候，王妃總會寬宏大量地說：“噓，別做聲！亨德爾記仇了！”

[7]亨德爾并沒有懷恨在心。伯尼說：“他盡管粗魯專橫，但完全沒有惡意。就算暴跳如雷，他也會別出心裁，再加上他那口蹩腳的英語，總讓人覺得滑稽可笑。像呂利和格魯克那樣，他擁有發號施令的天賦；和他們相似的是，亨德爾身上融合著兩種特質，既有壓倒一切反對意見的暴躁脾氣，又有溫和聰敏的本性，盡管會刺傷別人的自尊心，但也有力量撫平這種創傷?！痹谂啪氈校回灙殧鄬Ｐ校撬呐u和斥責卻充滿幽默感，讓人覺得滑稽好笑。有一段時間，倫敦的歌劇院成了歌唱家弗斯蒂娜和庫佐尼雙方支持者的戰場，甚至在威爾士王妃資助的演出中，兩位歌劇紅伶竟然都揪住對方的頭發大打出手，引得滿場觀眾鼓掌喝彩，科里·吉波特意寫了劇本來描述這場歷史上出名的打架斗毆，他認為在這場喧囂的鬧劇里，亨德爾是唯一冷靜的人。他說：“照我看來，就該由著她們平心靜氣地打個你死我活。你要是勸她們罷手，簡直是火上澆油。等她們打累了，火氣自然就消了。”為了讓這場打鬧速戰速決，亨德爾指揮樂手把定音鼓敲得隆隆作響。

[8]就連亨德爾大發雷霆時，也讓人覺得他在暗自竊笑。性情暴躁的庫佐尼不肯演唱他的歌曲，他就掐住庫佐尼的腰，一把推到窗口，揚言要把她扔到大街上去，他帶著開玩笑的神氣說：“你瞧，夫人，你向來就是個女妖怪，我知道得一清二楚；可我得讓你明白，我就是魔王別西卜，妖魔鬼怪的主子！”

[9]他這一生都喜愛自由自在。他討厭一切束縛限制，對所有的官職避之不及：我們說不出他給公主王妃擔任教師的掌故；即使入籍成為英國公民后，他也從未獲得重要的宮廷樂職和豐厚的薪水；這些美差都落到了無足輕重的作曲家頭上。亨德爾毫不費力地拿這些事情打趣；提起自己的英國同行時，免不了連譏帶諷地挖苦一番。除了音樂以外，他所受教育有限，因而對學院派和學者風范的音樂家不屑一顧。他沒有上過牛津大學，卻被授予牛津的博士學位。據說他滿口抱怨：“真是活見鬼！難不成我得自己掏錢好跟這些蠢貨一個樣兒？這輩子休想！”□