Julius Eastman’s Guerrilla Minimalism
Eastman, all but forgotten at century’s end, is now seen as a brazen pioneer.
伊士曼在世纪末几乎被遗忘，现在被视为无耻的先驱。
Courtesy R.
由 R 提供
Nemo Hill Collection Minimalism, the last great scandal-making revolution in twentieth-century music, has become venerable.
Nemo Hill Collection 极简主义是二十世纪音乐中最后一次引起丑闻的伟大革命，现已变得令人尊敬。
This season, Steve Reich and Philip Glass are being celebrated worldwide on the occasion of their eightieth birthdays.
本季，史蒂夫·赖克 (Steve Reich) 和菲利普·格拉斯 (Philip Glass) 将在全球范围内庆祝他们的八十岁生日。
(Reich’s was in October; Glass’s is on January 31st.) Arvo Pärt, the auratic “mystic minimalist” from Estonia, received similar genuflections when he turned eighty, in 2015.
（Reich 的时间是 10 月；Glass 的时间是 1 月 31 日。）Arvo Pärt，这位来自爱沙尼亚的光环“神秘极简主义者”，在 2015 年 80 岁时也受到了类似的跪拜。
Boxed sets have been issued, academic conferences organized, books published.
已发行盒装套装，组织学术会议，出版书籍。
Kyle Gann, Keith Potter, and Pwyll ap Siôn’s “Ashgate Research Companion to Minimalist and Postminimalist Music,” the most comprehensive treatment to date, covers everything from John Adams’s “Harmonielehre” to the electronic drone pieces of Éliane Radigue.
凯尔·江恩 (Kyle Gann)、基思·波特 (Keith Potter) 和 Pwyll ap Siôn 的《Ashgate Research Companion to Minimalist and Postminimalist Music》是迄今为止最全面的处理，涵盖了从约翰·亚当斯 (John Adams) 的《Harmonielehre》到埃莉安·拉迪格 (Éliane Radigue) 的电子无人机作品的一切内容。
With the canonization of minimalism has come a reconsideration of its mythology.
随着极简主义的经典化，人们对其神话进行了重新思考。
According to the familiar narrative, a group of composers led by Terry Riley, Reich, and Glass rejected modernist thorniness, opened themselves to pop and non-Western influences, and came home to simple chords and a steady pulse.
根据熟悉的叙述，以特里·赖利、赖克和格拉斯为首的一群作曲家拒绝了现代主义的棘手，向流行和非西方的影响开放，并回归到简单的和弦和稳定的脉搏。
The reality is more complicated.
现实情况要复杂得多。
La Monte Young, whose String Trio of 1958 is widely held to be the starting point of minimalism, steered clear of tonality and maintained an avant-garde posture.
La Monte Young 1958 年的弦乐三重奏被广泛认为是极简主义的起点，它避开了调性并保持了前卫的姿态。
A crucial rediscovery of recent years has been the work of Terry Jennings and Dennis Johnson, who joined Young in his early explorations of stripped-down textures.
近年来的一项重要重新发现是特里·詹宁斯 (Terry Jennings) 和丹尼斯·约翰逊 (Dennis Johnson) 的工作，他们与杨一起进行了对精简纹理的早期探索。
The pianist John Tilbury has made a luminous recording, for the Another Timbre label, of Jennings’s early piano pieces, which are minimalist more in the Samuel Beckett sense—spare, cryptic, suggestive.
钢琴家约翰·蒂尔伯里 (John Tilbury) 为 Another Timbre 厂牌录制了詹宁斯早期钢琴作品的明亮唱片，这些作品在塞缪尔·贝克特 (Samuel Beckett) 的意义上属于极简主义风格——简洁、神秘、富有启发性。
For the Irritable Hedgehog label, R.
对于易怒刺猬标签，R.
Andrew Lee has revived Johnson’s vast 1959 work “November,” in which crystalline sonorities gyrate for five hours.
安德鲁·李 (Andrew Lee) 重新演绎了约翰逊 1959 年的巨著《十一月》，其中晶莹剔透的声音回旋了五个小时。
The major revelation, though, has been the brazen and brilliant music of Julius Eastman, who was all but forgotten at century’s end.
然而，主要的启示是朱利叶斯·伊士曼 (Julius Eastman) 厚颜无耻而辉煌的音乐，他在世纪末几乎被遗忘了。
Eastman found a degree of fame in the nineteen-seventies and early eighties, mainly as a singer: he performed the uproarious role of George III in Peter Maxwell Davies’s “Eight Songs for a Mad King,” in the company of Pierre Boulez, and toured with Meredith Monk.
伊士曼在十九世纪七十年代和八十年代初期获得了一定的声誉，主要是作为一名歌手：他在皮埃尔·布列兹的陪伴下，在彼得·麦克斯韦·戴维斯的《疯狂国王的八首歌》中扮演乔治三世，并与梅雷迪斯·蒙克一起巡演。
He achieved more limited notoriety for works that defiantly affirmed his identity as an African-American and as a gay man.
他因作品公然肯定了他作为非裔美国人和同性恋者的身份而获得了有限的恶名。
(One was called “Nigger Faggot.”) As the eighties went on, he slipped from view, his behavior increasingly erratic.
（其中一个被称为“黑鬼基佬”。）随着八十年代的继续，他从人们的视野中消失了，他的行为越来越不稳定。
When he died, in 1990, at the age of forty-nine, months passed before Gann broke the news, in the Village Voice.
1990 年，49 岁的他去世了，几个月后江恩才在《乡村之声》中宣布了这一消息。
These days, Eastman’s name is everywhere.
如今，伊士曼的名字随处可见。
Renée Levine Packer and Mary Jane Leach have edited an anthology of essays about him, entitled “Gay Guerrilla.” A recording of Eastman’s 1974 piece “Femenine,” on the Frozen Reeds label, has won praise from classical and pop critics alike.
蕾妮·莱文·帕克和玛丽·简·利奇编辑了一本关于他的文章选集，题为《同性恋游击队》。 Frozen Reeds 唱片公司录制的伊士曼 1974 年作品《Femenine》的唱片赢得了古典乐和流行乐评论家的一致好评。
The London Contemporary Music Festival staged three days of Eastman concerts in December; Monday Evening Concerts, in Los Angeles, will present an Eastman program on January 23rd; and the Bowerbird ensemble, in Philadelphia, is planning a festival for the spring.
伦敦当代音乐节于 12 月举办了为期三天的伊士曼音乐会； 1 月 23 日，洛杉矶周一晚间音乐会将呈现伊士曼 (Eastman) 节目；费城的园丁鸟乐团正计划在春天举办一场音乐节。
Identity politics has probably played a role in the Eastman renaissance: programming a black, gay composer quells questions about diversity.
身份政治可能在伊士曼的复兴中发挥了作用：为一位黑人同性恋作曲家编排节目平息了有关多样性的问题。
But it’s the music that commands attention: wild, grand, delirious, demonic, an uncontainable personality surging into sound.
但引起人们注意的是音乐：狂野、宏大、疯狂、恶魔，一种难以抑制的个性在声音中涌动。
“Gay Guerrilla” opens with an extended biographical essay, by Packer, that feels ready for adaptation as a harrowing indie film.
《同性恋游击队》以帕克撰写的一篇长篇传记文章开头，感觉已经准备好改编成一部令人痛苦的独立电影了。
Eastman grew up in Ithaca, New York, singing in boys’ choirs and glee clubs.
伊士曼在纽约伊萨卡长大，在男孩合唱团和欢乐合唱团中唱歌。
In his teen-age years, he showed talent as a pianist, and in 1959 he began studying at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute, one of the country’s leading music schools.
在他十几岁的时候，他就表现出了钢琴家的天赋，并于 1959 年开始在费城柯蒂斯学院（美国领先的音乐学校之一）学习。
There his interests shifted from piano to composition.
在那里，他的兴趣从钢琴转向了作曲。
By the end of the sixties, he had joined the Creative Associates program at the State University of New York at Buffalo, which, under the direction of Lukas Foss, had become a center of avant-garde activity.
六十年代末，他加入了纽约州立大学布法罗分校的创意助理项目，在卢卡斯·福斯的指导下，该项目已成为前卫活动的中心。
Eastman first made his name as a creator of conceptual scores in the vein of John Cage, his incantatory baritone often serving as a connecting thread.
伊士曼最初是作为约翰·凯奇风格的概念乐谱创作者而出名的，他的咒语男中音经常充当连接线。
In the same period, he acquired a taste for provocation.
同一时期，他养成了挑衅的习惯。
Cage was miffed when, during a rendition of his “Song Books,” in Buffalo, Eastman invited a young man onstage and undressed him.
当凯奇在布法罗表演他的《歌集》时，伊士曼邀请一名年轻人上台并脱掉了他的衣服，这让凯奇很生气。
This was not the kind of happening that Cage had in mind.
这不是凯奇想要发生的事情。
Works in what Eastman called his “Nigger Series” began appearing in the late seventies, causing immediate discomfort.
伊士曼称之为“黑鬼系列”的作品于七十年代末开始出现，立即引起了不适。
He might have made more headway if his tactics had been less confrontational, but, as a colleague remarked, self-promotion was alien to him.
如果他的策略不那么对抗性的话，他可能会取得更大的进展，但正如一位同事所说，自我推销对他来说很陌生。
His final years had the aspect of a deliberate martyrdom, accelerated by alcohol and drugs.
他的最后几年是一种蓄意的殉难，酒精和毒品加速了他的殉难。
He spent time in homeless shelters and in Tompkins Square Park.
他在无家可归者收容所和汤普金斯广场公园度过了一段时间。
The composer David Borden has suggested that Eastman was “teaching himself humility on his own terms.”
作曲家大卫·博登表示，伊士曼正在“按照自己的方式教导自己谦虚”。
After Eastman’s death, his manuscripts were scattered, and some vanished.
伊士曼去世后，他的手稿散落一地，有些甚至消失了。
Only after years of detective work, led by Leach, has a corpus of scores been assembled.
经过利奇领导多年的侦探工作，才收集了一份分数资料。
A three-disk set on the New World label, “Unjust Malaise” (Borden’s anagram of Eastman’s name), gives a superb overview.
新世界唱片公司的三张唱片“Unjust Malaise”（博登对伊士曼名字的变位词）给出了精彩的概述。
As it happens, Paul Tai, who runs New World, once hired Eastman to work at the old downtown Tower Records.
碰巧的是，新世界的经营者保罗·戴（Paul Tai）曾经聘请伊士曼在市中心的塔尔唱片公司（Tower Records）工作。
Minimalism enabled Eastman’s flowering, but, as Matthew Mendez writes, in “Gay Guerrilla,” his approach to the genre was “hard to pin down: arch, and not a little tongue in cheek.” In 1973, Eastman wrote “Stay on It,” which begins with a syncopated, relentlessly repeated riff and a falsetto cry of “Stay on it, stay on it.” There’s a hint of disco in the festive, propulsive sound.
极简主义使伊士曼得以蓬勃发展，但正如马修·门德斯在《同性恋游击队》中所写，他对这一类型的处理方式“很难确定：拱门，而不是半开玩笑”。 1973 年，伊士曼创作了《Stay on It》，以切分音、不断重复的即兴重复段和假声“Stay on it，stay on it”开始。喜庆、推进的声音中有一丝迪斯科的味道。
But more dissonant, unruly material intrudes, and several times the piece dissolves into beatless anarchy.
但更多的不和谐、不守规矩的材料介入了，这首曲子好几次陷入了无节奏的无政府状态。
(A good rendition can be found on the New World set; even better is a dynamic 1974 performance from Glasgow, available on Vimeo.) “Femenine” extends the mood of “Stay on It” to more than an hour’s duration, losing wit and variety in the process.
（在《新世界》的演出中可以找到很好的演绎；更好的是 1974 年来自格拉斯哥的充满活力的表演，可以在 Vimeo 上找到。）《Femenine》将《Stay on It》的情绪延伸到一个多小时的持续时间，在这个过程中失去了智慧和多样性。
Eastman perfected his multifarious minimalism in three works of the late seventies: “Crazy Nigger,” “Evil Nigger,” and “Gay Guerrilla.” There’s a precious recording of the composer impishly discussing these pieces: in a dry, professorial tone, he says that he chose the word “nigger” because it represents “a basicness, a fundamentalness, and eschews that thing which is superficial or—what can we say?—elegant.” Each work is scored for multiple instruments of the same kind; Eastman usually presented them with a quartet of pianos.
伊士曼在七十年代末的三部作品中完善了他丰富多彩的极简主义：《疯狂的黑鬼》、《邪恶的黑鬼》和《同性恋游击队》。有一段珍贵的录音记录了作曲家顽皮地讨论这些作品：他以一种干巴巴、教授式的语气说，他选择“黑鬼”这个词是因为它代表“一种基本性，一种基本性，并且避开了那些肤浅的东西，或者我们能说什么？优雅的东西。”每首作品均由多种同类乐器进行评分；伊士曼通常会赠送给他们四重奏钢琴。
“Crazy Nigger” begins with a majestic rumbling of B-flats in the bass.
《疯狂黑鬼》以低音降 B 调的雄伟隆隆声开始。
We are thrown into a world that is as much Romantic as minimalist: the harmony thickens incrementally; quiet episodes are juxtaposed with thunderous fortissimos; pentatonic interludes add an angelic sweetness.
我们被扔进了一个既浪漫又极简的世界：和谐逐渐变得浓厚；安静的片段与雷鸣般的强音并列；五声音阶间奏增添了天使般的甜蜜。
There is a sense of worlds forming, of forces gathering.
有一种世界正在形成、力量正在聚集的感觉。
Classic minimalist works tend to introduce change by way of horizontal shifts: Reich’s “phasing” effect, in which instruments playing the same music slip out of synch with one another; Glass’s “additive” process, in which notes are added to a repeating pattern.
经典的极简主义作品倾向于通过水平移动来引入变化：赖希的“移相”效果，演奏相同音乐的乐器彼此不同步； Glass 的“添加”过程，将音符添加到重复的图案中。
Eastman’s method, by contrast, is vertical.
相比之下，伊士曼的方法是垂直的。
He keeps piling on elements, so that an initially consonant texture turns discordant and competing rhythmic patterns build to a blur.
他不断地添加元素，使得最初的辅音纹理变得不和谐，相互竞争的节奏模式变得模糊。
New ideas appear out of nowhere: “Evil Nigger” becomes fixated on a minor-key figure, in falling fourths, that resembles the opening motif of Mahler’s First Symphony, and “Gay Guerrilla” hammers away at the Lutheran hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” beloved of Bach.
新的想法凭空出现：“邪恶的黑鬼”开始关注一个小调的降四度音调，这类似于马勒第一交响曲的开场主题，而“同性恋游击队”则猛烈地演奏着巴赫所钟爱的路德教会赞美诗“强大的堡垒是我们的上帝”。
Furthermore, players are given some freedom in realizing the score, their parts taking the form of structured improvisations.
此外，演奏者在实现乐谱方面有一定的自由，他们的部分采取结构化的即兴创作的形式。
This exuberant chaos is far removed from the deadpan cool of Reich and Glass.
这种旺盛的混乱与赖希和格拉斯的面无表情的冷静相去甚远。
Throughout, Eastman upends the narrative of minimalist restoration—of the triumph of simplicity.
自始至终，伊士曼颠覆了极简主义复兴的叙事——简约的胜利。
Indeed, “Evil Nigger” runs the story in reverse, ending in spaced-out atonality.
事实上，《邪恶的黑鬼》以相反的方式讲述了故事，以一种恍惚的无调性结束。
Surviving scores and recorded improvisations from his final decade revisit that zone frequently.
他最后十年留下的乐谱和即兴创作记录经常重新审视这个区域。
(A tape of a volcanic 1980 piano-and-voice performance has surfaced; hopefully, it will be released.) Something about this music can’t be fixed in place, and recordings are a pale echo of the live experience.
（一卷 1980 年火山钢琴和声乐表演的磁带已经浮出水面；希望它能被发行。）这首音乐的某些东西无法固定到位，录音只是现场体验的苍白回声。
In the closing minutes of “Crazy Nigger,” additional pianists emerge from the audience and join the players onstage, to assist in the unfolding of a clangorous overtone series.
在《疯狂黑鬼》的最后几分钟，更多的钢琴家从观众席中出现，与舞台上的演奏者一起，协助展开一系列铿锵的泛音。
The collapse of the wall between performers and onlookers feels like the start of an uprising.
表演者和旁观者之间的墙壁倒塌，感觉就像一场起义的开始。
This is the point at which Eastman’s music becomes absolutely, ferociously political.
正是在这一点上，伊士曼的音乐变得绝对的、残酷的政治性。
For a moment, it seems poised to bring the system down.
有一段时间，它似乎准备让系统瘫痪。
♦
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