英国新闻听力 由越南战争激发的音乐灵感

Next month marks the 40th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Music played an important part in thewar. And to mark the anniversary of the end of the conflict, Ian Brenan, the British record producer has put together an album of music which defines the war in Vietnam. It features the work of classic Vietnamesemusicians who are prominent in the north. And Ian Brenan spoke¹ to Julian Waurika about the project.

I was approaching it with a new mind as much as I could. I’m not an expert, but I had a great interest inexploring the theme around the conflict in the war between American and Vietnam and how that might be reflected in music. Some of the individuals involved were actually part of the war meaning they were in the military. One of them chose to be a musician to console the other troops. In doing that he was actually at greater risk to be harmed himself because he was unarmed the most of the time. And his job was to go to thefrontlines and to play music in between battles for people. So there’s a greater risk of being shot by snipers.

In performing again forty years on, some people were effectively doing something they had not done for many decades, is that right?

By their report, it is something they had not done literally² taking out instruments and dusting them off and singing in front of family members for the first time that the family members could ever recollect³. Andthere’s a lot of very palpable emotion around some of their performances, particularly a mother performing with her daughter who is the music director for the entire project. And by the time they were done, everyone in the room, I think, was in tears literally. It sounds like a cliché, but it was a very powerful… It’s an epic⁴ song. And that process of revelation was so strong because the daughter and her husband and the other few people in the room were witnessing something for the first time.

I wanted to ask you about some of the ancient instruments that people performed or used in some of these performances.

I think there is a lot of misconceptions about other cultures obviously, you know, cross-culturally. I think in general, there’s a bias⁵ that’s pretty perverse⁶ of the west towards the east. And I think that runsdeeply in America. And musically I think there is a tendency—I’m not saying it’s overwhelming tendency—but it’s a trend of many people in the west to dismiss Asian music.

下个月即将迎来越南战争结束的40周年纪念日。音乐在这场战争中发挥了重要作用。为纪念这场冲突结束40周年，英国音乐制作人伊恩·布雷南把描述越南战争的音乐收录于一张专辑中。这些音乐作品来自于越南北方杰出的古典音乐家。伊恩·布雷南向朱利安·沃里卡阐述了这个音乐项目。

我竭尽全力用新思维去做这张专辑。我不是这方面的专家，但对于挖掘与美越战争有关的故事以及它们怎样反映在音乐中，我很感兴趣。项目中的一些人实际上是战争的组成部分，也就是说他们是军人。其中有一名军人选择当音乐家来抚慰其他军人，他这样做其实危险更大，因为大多数时候他都是手无寸铁的。而他的工作就是去往前线，在战争间隙为人们演奏音乐。所以，他被狙击手射中的可能性更大。

40年后再次演奏，这是有些人几十年来都没做过的事，对吗？

从他们的报告中可知，这是他们很多年来都没做过的事：拿出乐器，掸掉灰尘，在家人面前演唱——这是他们家人记忆中第一次看到的场景。另外，在演出一些作品的时候，现场洋溢着非常浓重的情感，特别是一位母亲和她的女儿——整个项目的音乐总监——合唱的情景。她们表演完后，我觉得屋里所有人都哭了。听起来好像是很老套的情节，但那确实是一个非常有力量的……那是一首叙事性的歌曲。整个歌唱和叙述的过程非常震撼，因为这位女儿和她的丈夫以及屋里其他几个人都是第一次经历这样的过程。

我想请教你有关他们在表演中使用的一些乐器的知识。

我认为人们对其他国家的文化显然存在着许多跨文化误解。总体上看，西方对东方有着很深的偏见。而且我觉得这种偏见在美国已经根深蒂固。音乐上，我认为有这样一种趋势，虽然我并没有说它是压倒性的趋势，但很多西方人都对亚洲音乐不以为然。

1 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

3 recollect   

v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得

参考例句：

• He tried to recollect things and drown himself in them.他极力回想过去的事情而沉浸于回忆之中。
• She could not recollect being there.她回想不起曾经到过那儿。

4 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

5 bias   

n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见

参考例句：

• They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。
• He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

6 perverse   

adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的

参考例句：

• It would be perverse to stop this healthy trend.阻止这种健康发展的趋势是没有道理的。
• She gets a perverse satisfaction from making other people embarrassed.她有一种不正常的心态，以使别人难堪来取乐。