考研英语一英译汉试题分析和参考答案

2014年考研英语（一）英译汉试题分析和参考答案

试题来源于The New York Review of Books，汉语习惯称之为《纽约书评》，是读书人最爱浏览的网站之一，也是几大书评网

站中关注最高的网站之一。发表的日期是2013年4月4日，原文题目是Beethoven and the Quality of Courage，通篇文章主要谈论的是贝多芬音乐中体现出贝多芬对自由的看法。今年的试题与往年相比，有以下几点异同：

1. 保持英语一翻译部分一贯的难度，但是总体难度比2013年要低。

2.保持英语一翻译部分一贯的特色，偏论述，爱选学术和书评性质方面的文章，2011年也曾经考过书评。

3.

虽然文章提及的是贝多芬，感觉偏音乐，其实不然，保持了英语一翻译部分一贯的标准，大家都可以读懂，无太强的专业性。

原文文章如下，划线部分是今年真题，出题人对原文有改动。

Beethoven and the Quality of Courage

Daniel Barenboim

来源于《纽约书评》2013年4月4号，链接如下：

It is always interesting and sometimes even important to have intimate

knowledge of a composer’s life, but it is not essential in order to understand the

composer’s works. In Beethoven’s case, one mustn’t forget that in 1802, the year he

was contemplating suicide—as he wrote in an unsent letter to his brothers that came

to be known as the “Heiligenstadt Testament”—he also composed the Second

Symphony, one of his works that was most positive in spirit, thus showing us that it is

of vital importance to separate his music from his personal biography and not to

conflate the two.

Therefore, I will not aim here to provide an elaborate psychological study of the

man Beethoven through an analysis of his works, or vice versa. In fact, although the

focus of this essay will indeed be Beethoven’s music, it must be understood that one

cannot explain the nature or the message of music through words. 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. 这也是为什么当我们试图用语言来描述音乐时，我们只能用语言来表达我们对音乐的感受，而不能完全理解音乐本身。

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 (op. 111). 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.人们普遍认为他是个思想自由的人，是个勇敢无畏的人，我发现勇敢这一特征是理解他作品的关键，更不必说是演出其作品的关键。

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 intense crescendo and then abruptly following it with a sudden soft passage (a “subito piano”) was only rarely used by composers before him. 贝多芬习惯用渐强的方式来逐渐增高乐曲的音量，然后又突然跟上一节轻柔的乐段，在他之前，只有极个别作曲家会使用这种表现方式。（说明：由于还没有看到完整的试卷，所以这一句话出题人会有些改动，暂时这样翻译，请参考即可。）In other words, Beethoven asks the performer to show courage, not to be afraid of going to the edge of the precipice, and he thus forces the performer to find the “line of most resistance,” a phrase coined by the great pianist Artur Schnabel.

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.尤为重要的是他对自由的观点，对他而言，这种自由将个人的权利和责任联系起来：他倡导思想自由和个人言论自由。