016《经济学家》读译参考之十六：琵琶的新生.doc

TEXT 16 Like pearls falling into a jade plate Mar 30th 2006 From The Economist print edition WHEN Wu Man arrived in New Haven1, Connecticut, from Beijing in 1990 she spoke no English and ★gambled on[1] surviving with the help of her pipa, a traditional lute-like Chinese instrument. She has succeeded (A) （triumph）, working her way from New Yorks Chinatown to Carnegie Hall2, where she gives her debut recital on April 6th. The pipa is a sonorous, four-stringed, pear-shaped instrument held upright on the lap. Its strings used to be silk but are now steel, which resonates better. The fake fingernails on Ms Wus right hand ★pluck[2] the strings, while her left hand fingers the ★frets[3]. （1）She produces an (B) (astonish) range of colours and moods from a 2,000-year-old instrument which produces a sound, observed a poet from the Tang dynasty, like “pearls falling into a jade plate”. Ms Wu is a ★virtuoso[4] interpreter of traditional music, creating (C) （haunt） exotic waves of sound with ★pizzicatos and tremolos[5] (the plucking of one string with all five fingers consecutively). But (D) （evoke） of dropping pearls soon fade to Jimi Hendrix3. During her time in America, （2）Ms Wu has daringly expanded the pipas range, playing jazz, bluegrass4 and Bollywood5 with eclectic instrumentalists—and inspiring (E) (number) works from prominent composers. The pipa can sound gently lyrical or (F) （aggress） modern, which is why, says Ms Wu, it attracts such composers as Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Tan Dun and Bright Sheng, all of whom have written for her. She was the first to partner the pipa with an endongo (an eight-stringed Ugandan instrument), an Appalachian banjo and a string quartet6. She was also, she says, the first to play jazz on the pipa. All this happened after she arrived in America. Young Chinese musicians are now ubiquitous in American and European conservatories, competitions and concert halls, but during Chinas cultural revolution the performa