2020年经济学人 音乐总监斯蒂芬·克劳伯里爵士(1)（在线收听）

Sir Stephen Cleobury, musical director for 37 years of King's College, Cambridge, died on November 22nd, aged 70

斯蒂芬·克劳伯里爵士曾任剑桥大学国王学院音乐总监37年，他于11月22日去世，享年70岁。

Snow seldom falls in England at Christmas time. Yet cards habitually show woods, cottages and robins sunk deep in it, with more star-flakes descending. For Christmas Eve—once the wrapping is done, the turkey timetable worked out, the door locked for the late-night journey to church—brings with it an enveloping quiet that seems closest to the stillness of snow.

圣诞节期间英国很少下雪。然而，卡片上习惯性地印着森林、农舍和知更鸟，它们深深地陷进雪里，还有更多落下来的星星。圣诞节前夕——一旦包装完毕，火鸡的时间表就制定出来了，深夜去教堂的路上，门是锁着的，四周笼罩着一种静谧，这似乎是最接近雪的寂静。

Traditionally this quiet is broken by carolling. It may be the local waits, clustered under a streetlamp with gloves and torches, but more often over the past few decades it has meant the broadcast service of Nine Lessons and Carols by the choir of King's College, Cambridge. Seamlessly, in their red and white robes in the candlelit choir-stalls, the choristers fill listeners' heads not only with their favourite Victorian hymns— "Once in royal David's city","The first nowell", "Hark! The herald",

传统上，这种宁静会被颂歌打破。可能是当地的等待者的歌声，他们聚集在路灯下，带着手套和火把歌唱，但在过去几十年里，它更多指的是剑桥大学国王学院唱诗班的九堂课和颂歌的广播服务。 不间断地，唱诗班歌手穿着红白相间的长袍，站在烛光唱诗班里，不仅用他们最喜欢的维多利亚时代的赞美诗来抚慰听众，《大卫王城往事》，《第一个圣诞》，《听！传令官》，

all stirring tears with memories of Christmases past— but also with the rhythmic, driving freshness of true carols, the dancing medieval folk tunes rescued from the hills and lanes of Derbyshire or Sussex by Cecil Sharp and Ralph Vaughan Williams in the early 20th century, just at the point of disappearing. When Stephen Cleobury took up this precious task in 1982, as the new director of music at King's, he was terrified. (Being given to understatement, that was not a word he used lightly.)

所有激动的泪水都带着对过去圣诞节的回忆—— 但也歌唱着有节奏的、强劲的、新鲜的真正的颂歌，从山上拯救出来的中世纪民间舞蹈曲调，还有塞西尔·夏普和拉尔夫·沃恩·威廉姆斯在20世纪初创作的《德比郡或苏塞克斯郡的小巷》，当时它们正处于消失的边缘。1982年，当斯蒂芬·克利奥伯里在以国王学院音乐总监的身份接下这项宝贵的任务时，他吓坏了。(他惯于轻描淡写，所以这个词用得并不轻松。)