GRE阅读高频机经原文：Music----Landowska

　　27. 11月3日GRE考试原文：Music----Landowska

　　when, in the twentieth century, the concept of the virtuoso-as-hero retired, as a replacement came the scholar-pianist, the musician-pianist, the re-creator of the composers thoughts. With this change came the abdication of technique. Virtuosity in and of itself, indeed, became something of a dirty word.

　　One of the important new figures, though she was a harpsichordist and not a pianist, was Wanda. Landowska, she was the one who demonstrated how Bach, Handel, Scarlet and Couperin sounded on the instrument for which their music was originally conceived. It would be a mistake to consider Landowska a classicist, however. She had been born in an age of romantic playing, an age dominated by the figures of Liszt, Leschetisky and their pupils. Thus she grew up with certain romantic traditions of performance and whatever the stringency of her musical scholarship, for Landowska knew how to hold an audience breathless and when she gave a recital, it was to the accompaniment that all great artists receive deathlike silence and rapt attention.

　　Her playing was romantic, but who is to say that it was not closer to Bach then the dry munching of some later harpsichordists? She had a miraculous equality of touch, with a left hand that seemed to say the least, colorful. But no artist in this generation could clarify with such deftness the polyphonic writing of the baroque masters. And none could make the music so spring to life.

　　Her secret was a lifetime of scholarship, plus perfect technical equipment and resilient rhythm, all combined with knowledge of just when not to hold the printed note sacrosanct. Of course, that alone demands a lifetime of knowledge. She was a genius at underlining the dramatic and did have meaning and emotional significance. She took liberties, all kinds of liberties, but like all great artists she could get away with them. In short, her entire musical approach was romantic: intensely personal, full of light and shade, never pedantic.

　　Thanks to Landowska, Bach began to sound thick when played on the piano. One by one, pianists stopped playing Bach as adapted by Liszt, Bach as adapted by Tausig. Then they began to think twice before performing any kind of baroque music, including even Scarlatti. The piano repertoire, it began to be felt, was extensive enough without reverting to transcriptions and Bach and Scarlatti on the piano were in a way, transcriptions no matter how faithfully the original notes were played.

　　In line with this kind of purity came the emphasis on the back to nature study of the composers manuscripts that has continued to the present, will continue and is something new in the scheme of things.