2014年英语一

2014年英语一

Section II Reading Comprehension Part C:Directions:

Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written neatly on the ANSWER SHEET. (10 points)

Music means different things to different people and sometimes even different things to the same person at different moments of his life. It might be poetic, philosophical, sensual, or mathematical, but in any case it must, in my view, have something to do with the soul of the human being. Hence it is metaphysical, but the means of expression is purely and exclusively physical: sound. I believe it is precisely this permanent coexistence of metaphysical message through physical means that is the strength of music. (46) It is also the reason why when we try to describe music with words, all we can do is articulate our reactions to it, and not grasp music itself.

Beethoven’s importance in music has been principally defined by the revolutionary nature of his compositions. He freed music from hitherto prevailing conventions of harmony and structure. Sometimes I feel in his late works a will to break all signs of continuity. The music is abrupt and seemingly disconnected, as in the last piano sonata. In musical expression, he did not feel restrained by the weight of convention. (47) By all accounts he was a freethinking person, and a courageous one, and I find courage an essential quality for the understanding, let

alone the performance, of his works.

This courageous attitude in fact becomes a requirement for the performers of Beethoven’s music. His compositions demand the performer to show courage, for example in the use of dynamics. (48) Beethoven’s habit of increasing the volume with an extreme intensity and then abruptly following it with a sudden soft passage was only rarely used by composers before him.

Beethoven was a deeply political man in the broadest sense of the word. He was not interested in daily politics, but concerned with questions of moral behavior and the larger questions of right and wrong affecting the entire society. (49) Especially significant was his view of freedom, which, for him, was associated with the rights and responsibilities of the individual: he advocated freedom of thought and of personal expression. Beethoven’s music tends to move from chaos to order as if order were an imperative of human existence. For him, order does not result from forgetting or ignoring the disorders that plague our existence; order is a necessary development, an improvement that may lead to the Greek ideal of spiritual elevation. It is not by chance that the Funeral March is not the last movement of the Eroica Symphony, but the second, so that suffering does not have the last word. (50) One could interpret much of the work of Beethoven by saying that suffering is inevitable, but the courage to fight it renders life worth living. 参考译文

46. It is also the reason why when we try to describe music with words, all we can do is articulate our reactions to it and not grasp music itself.

这也是为什么当我们试图用语言描述音乐时，我们只能表达对音乐的感受，而无法领悟音乐的精髓。

47. By all accounts he was a freethinking person, and a courageous one, and I find courage an essential quality for the understanding, let alone the performance, of his works.

人们一致认为，贝多芬思想自由而勇敢无畏，在我看来，要理解其作品必须要抓住勇气这一本质，在演奏其作品时更是如此。

48. Beethoven's habit of increasing the volume with an extreme intensity and then abruptly following it with a sudden soft passage was only rarely used by composers before him.

贝多芬习惯用紧促有力的演奏提高音量，然后曲风一转，紧接一段轻柔舒缓的音乐，而在他之前很少有作曲家这么做。

49. Especially significant was his views of freedom, which, for him, was associated with the rights and responsibilities of the individual; he advocated freedom of thought and of personal expression.

贝多芬的自由观意义尤为深远。在他看来，自由与个人的权利、责任息息相关，他提

倡思想自由与个人言论自由。

50. One could interpret much of the work of Beethoven by saying that suffering is inevitable, but the courage to fight it renders life worth living.

你可以这样阐释贝多芬的大多数作品：磨难是在所难免的，但是与磨难抗争的勇气则是生命的意义之所在。