JOSHUA BARONE2026年9月4日It isn’t easy to interview Yo-Yo Ma. Not because he is one of the most famous musicians alive, a cellist who has been playing for world leaders since he was 7. Nor because he tends to answer questions with long stories rather than sound bites. The challenge is that he would rather be talking about you.采访马友友并非易事。但不是因为他是当今在世最著名的音乐家之一，也不是因为他从七岁起就为世界领导人演奏大提琴，更不是因为他会用长长的故事而不是口水话来回答问题。真正的挑战在于，他更愿意谈论你。“There’s nobody that’s not interesting,” he said by way of explanation during a recent interview at his hotel while performing in Denver. The night before, he had given a vivid, freshly insightful account of Dvorak’s Cello Concerto with the Colorado Symphony for thousands of people at Red Rocks. I had been sent there to report on his life at 70 and how he is reconciling age with relentless ambition, so my instinct was to shift the focus back to him. But I quickly learned what former President Barack Obama meant when he once said of Ma, “For every question you ask him, he asks you two in return.”“没有人是无趣的，”最近在丹佛演出期间下榻的酒店接受采访时，他这样解释道。前一晚，他在红岩剧场与科罗拉多交响乐团合作，为数千名观众演奏了德沃夏克的大提琴协奏曲，演绎生动而富有新意。我被派去报道他70岁的人生以及他如何调和年龄与永不停歇的雄心，所以本能地想把话题拉回他身上。但我很快明白了前总统贝拉克·奥巴马当年评价马友友时那句话的含义：“你每问他一个问题，他会回问你两个。”Ma’s way of speaking would seem like deflection or false modesty if he didn’t behave that way with everyone. “You can’t fake it,” composer Angélica Negrón said. Before the Red Rocks concert, I had followed him throughout the season: to recitals and a concerto premiere, to events that had little to do with music, far from any auditorium. Whether he was meeting a fellow artist, a fan or a community organizer, he was attentive and curious, willing to put his work on hold if it meant getting to know someone.如果马友友不是对所有人都这样，他的说话方式可能看起来会像回避或装谦虚。“这是装不出来的，”作曲家安杰莉卡·内格龙说。在红岩剧场音乐会之前，我整个演出季都跟着他：去独奏会、协奏曲首演，去远离任何音乐厅、与音乐关系不大的活动。无论是见到同行艺术家、乐迷还是社区组织者，他都专注而好奇，愿意为了解一个人而暂时放下手头的工作。马友友与科罗拉多交响乐团在丹佛附近的红岩剧场。He is a sincerely committed humanist in a time that more readily rewards cynicism. He sees people as an ecosystem, deeply connected to one another and to nature at large, in an age of algorithms nudging us into echo chambers. When he speaks about immigration or education, he avoids the brash, polarizing rhetoric that reigns today, subtly treating these topics as matters of ethics rather than politics.在一个更愿意奖励犬儒主义的时代，他是一位真诚投入的人文主义者。他把人看作一个生态系统，人与人之间以及与大自然之间都深度相连，尽管这个时代的算法正把我们推入回声室。他谈论移民或教育时，避开当今盛行的粗暴、极化修辞，巧妙地将这些话题视为伦理问题而非政治问题。What if we followed his example?如果我们以他为榜样，会怎样？“I look for models of behavior in other people,” said Stephen Colbert, who is a close friend. “His position is Olympian; his behavior is not.”“在别人身上我会去寻找行为模型，”马友友的密友斯蒂芬·科尔伯特说。“他的立场是超然的；他的行为却不是。”And, increasingly, Ma’s way of being is being incorporated into his public-facing work through his organization Sound Postings. He can hardly make a tour stop without some kind of community program, like a conversation about gun violence in Chicago or a farm dinner in West Virginia. He has embarked on yearslong projects that may take him to national parks, for instance, or a nightclub in Lebanon. When he addresses audiences, he mixes expressions of wonder about time and memory with worries for the future, especially when it comes to the environment.而且，马友友的为人方式正通过他的组织Sound Postings越来越多地融入他的公共工作。他几乎每站巡演都会安排某种社区项目，比如在芝加哥关于枪支暴力的对话，或西弗吉尼亚州的农场晚宴。他启动了长达数年的项目，可能把他带到国家公园，或黎巴嫩的某家夜总会。当他向观众讲话时，他把对时间和记忆的惊奇感与对未来的担忧交织在一起，尤其是在环境问题上。Because of who he is, maybe people will listen. “If he’s putting in that much work,” historian Heather Cox Richardson said, “how can we do anything less?”由于他的身份，也许人们会听得进去。“如果他付出了这么多努力，”历史学家希瑟·考克斯·理查森说，“我们怎么能做得比他少？”AT THIS POINT, Ma’s eminence and celebrity are givens. This is a musician who, born in France to Chinese immigrants, visited the United States as a 7-year-old and quickly impressed the great cellist Pablo Casals. It wasn’t long before he found himself performing for President John F. Kennedy at a concert hosted by Leonard Bernstein. Since then he has hung out with Elmo and Mr. Rogers on television, sold millions of albums and accumulated shelves’ worth of Grammy Awards, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Obama.到如今，马友友的卓越和名望已是公认的事实。这位音乐家出生于法国，父母是中国移民，七岁访美时便给大提琴大师帕布罗·卡萨尔斯留下了深刻印象。不久之后，他就在伦纳德·伯恩斯坦主持的音乐会上为约翰·F·肯尼迪总统演出。此后，他在电视上与埃尔莫和罗杰斯先生同台，卖出了数百万张专辑，收获了满架的格莱美奖，并从奥巴马手中接过了总统自由勋章。“But maybe the most amazing thing about Yo-Yo Ma,” Obama has said, “is that everybody likes him.”“但关于马友友最令人称奇的也许就是，”奥巴马曾说，“每个人都喜欢他。”You could imagine a much different version of Ma: the child prodigy who, after growing up in the monastic world of music school, would still be a star but not such a people person. Casals, though, told him to go play baseball. “I don’t think he was a talent scout,” Ma said, “but I think the implication was, ‘Live a full life.’”你完全可以想象一个截然不同的马友友：一个在音乐学校修道院般环境中长大的神童，仍然是明星，却不太擅长与人交往。然而，卡萨尔斯告诉他要出去打棒球。“我不认为他是星探，”马友友说，“但我认为言下之意是，‘去过一种充实的生活。’”Ma, who ended up staying in the United States, was also shaped by being an immigrant. “One thing about immigrants is that they are always trying to understand a new place,” he said. “Now that I travel so much, the immigrant part of me is always thinking, I would like for you to plop me down anywhere, like Waldo, and I will find a way to do something purposeful and meaningful.”最终留在美国的马友友也深受移民身份的塑造。“移民的一个特点就是，他们总是在努力理解一个新地方，”他说。“现在我到处旅行，我身上移民的那部分总在想，我希望你把我随便扔到什么地方，就像‘寻找沃尔多’的游戏一样，我都能找到办法做一些有目的、有意义的事。”When he was 15 and studying at Juilliard, he met pianist Emanuel Ax in the cafeteria, and they became lifelong friends and musical partners. (“I would say that the two luckiest things that happened to me were meeting my wife and meeting Yo-Yo,” Ax said.) Around that time, Ma wasn’t sure the world needed another cellist. He would prepare a recital program, then present it in concert and realize halfway through that he was bored.15岁时，他在茱莉亚学院学习，在自助餐厅认识了钢琴家伊曼纽尔·艾克斯，两人从此成为终身朋友和音乐伙伴。（“我会说，发生在我身上最幸运的两件事，就是遇见我妻子和遇见马友友，”艾克斯说。）那段时间，马友友不确定世界是否还需要另一个大提琴家。他会准备一套独奏曲目，然后在音乐会上演奏，演到一半却发现自己感到无聊。马友友，摄于科罗拉多。“我从来不觉得取得什么成就能带来什么，顶多给你一瞬间的快感。” “We live in a world of people saying, ‘I need to achieve, achieve, achieve,’” Ma said. “But I’ve never felt like achieving something does anything more than give you a blip of pleasure.”“我们生活在一个人们总说‘我必须有成就、成就、成就’的世界里，”马友友说。“但我从来不觉得取得什么成就能带来什么，顶多给你一瞬间的快感。”Ma followed the Casals adage “I think of myself as a human being first, a musician second and a cellist third,” and chose not to study music full-time. Instead he earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Harvard University, and in a way, he never left that field. With the passion of a gleeful amateur, he has channeled his interest in humanity into projects like the ensemble now called Silkroad, an enduring relic of the multicultural ’90s; the Bach Project, which introduced him to strangers around the world; and Our Common Nature, a more recent, outdoorsy effort to bring people together.马友友奉行卡萨尔斯的格言：“我首先把自己看作一个人，其次才是音乐家，第三才是大提琴家。”因此他选择不全职学习音乐，而是在哈佛大学拿到了人类学学士学位。从某种意义上说，他从未离开过这个领域。带着一个快乐业余爱好者的热情，他将自己对人类的兴趣投入到各种项目中：比如现在名为“丝绸之路”的合奏团，这是多元文化盛行的90年代留下的持久遗产；把巴赫介绍给世界各地陌生人的巴赫计划；以及较新的户外项目“我们的共同自然”，旨在把人们聚在一起。“He’s voraciously curious,” said Sophie Shackleton, the creative producer at Sound Postings. “He’s very nonjudgmental about people across all different backgrounds and disciplines, and he loves trying to understand them.”“他求知若渴，”Sound Postings的创意制作人索菲·沙克尔顿说。“他对来自不同背景和学科的人从不妄加评判，他喜欢努力去理解他们。”Because of this, a Yo-Yo Ma concert is never just a concert. Even something as conventional as a recital of Bach’s complete cello suites, which he performed at Symphony Hall in Boston last fall, extended out into the world. It was simulcast to public libraries, nearby and into Massachusetts. In Watertown, where the screening room was at capacity and there was a waiting list of nearly 500 people, families gathered with cookies and apple cider from the cafe, and explored an exhibition upstairs. One mother referred to it all as “a gift.”正因如此，马友友的音乐会从来不只是音乐会。即使像去年秋天他在波士顿交响乐厅演奏全套巴赫大提琴组曲这样常规的演出也会延伸到外面的世界。演出被同步直播到波士顿附近乃至马萨诸塞州各地的公共图书馆。在沃特敦，放映室座无虚席，等候名单上还有近500人，人们带着咖啡馆的饼干和苹果酒聚在一起，还参观了楼上的一个展览。一位母亲称这一切为“一份礼物”。The quintessential Yo-Yo Ma tour stop includes an event, or several events, designed to bring together members of a local community who might not otherwise cross paths, even if they have a shared interest. There is usually some music, but mostly people share stories and ideas. These used to be juggled alongside his performances; now, they are managed by Sound Postings, whose five-member team is made up of nonmusicians.典型的马友友巡演站包括一个或几个活动，旨在把当地社区中原本可能不会相遇（即使他们有共同的兴趣）的成员聚在一起。活动通常有一些音乐，但主要是人们分享故事和想法。过去，这些活动与他的演出同时穿插安排；现在，它们由Sound Postings管理，其五人团队全部由非音乐家组成。“I love that,” Ma said, “because most of the audiences I play for are not musicians.”“我喜欢这样，”马友友说，“因为我为之演奏的大多数观众都不是音乐家。”“我为之演奏的大多数观众都不是音乐家，”马友友说。 “FOR ANY INSTRUMENTALIST, once past 70 is a crapshoot,” Carter Brey told Playbill this year as he was preparing to retire from his post as the New York Philharmonic’s principal cellist. Ma’s daughter gives him a hard time whenever he plays out of tune, and he made adjustments in bowing and tempo to the Dvorak concerto in Denver. But he also said that these days, he is “more efficient and more musical.”“对于任何器乐演奏家来说，过了70岁就是碰运气，”正准备从纽约爱乐乐团首席大提琴手的职位上退休的卡特·布雷今年对《剧目》杂志说。马友友每一次走音都会被女儿一通调侃，而他在丹佛还对德沃夏克协奏曲的弓法和速度做了调整。但他也说，如今他的演奏“更高效，也更有音乐性”。But why, at an age when musicians wind down their careers, is he expanding his reach? Despite maintaining a full performance calendar, Ma has a running joke that he is retired, and that “when you’re retired, you only do what you want to do.” The truth is that his brain may not be wired for a life at rest. “I hope,” he said, “that I will stay curious until I die.”但为什么在一个音乐家们逐渐淡出职业生涯的年纪，他却在扩大自己的影响范围？尽管演出日程排得满满当当，马友友有个常讲的笑话，说他退休了，而且“退休了，你就只做自己想做的事”。事实是，他的大脑也许天生就不适合安逸的生活。“我希望，”他说，“我会一直保持好奇，直到死去。”Richardson, the historian who recently appeared at Tanglewood as part of Ma’s festival “We the People,” theorized that he “would play if there was no one to listen, and he would play for nobody but third-graders if that was who was there.” Ax described their collaboration as a kind of endless search, saying, “We’ve played the Beethoven sonatas for almost 50 years, and we’re still finding ways to do them differently each time.”历史学家理查森最近作为马友友“我们人民”音乐节的一部分现身坦格尔伍德，她推测马友友“即使没有人听也会演奏，即使听众只有三年级学生，他也会为他们演奏”。艾克斯把两人的合作描述为一种无尽的探索，他说：“我们演奏贝多芬奏鸣曲快50年了，我们仍然每次都在寻找不同的演绎方式。”Ma is putting much more than music out into the world, though, including an example to learn from. “He is trying to reclaim American democracy and move it forward in a much healthier, more holistic way,” Richardson said. But she also acknowledged that it’s an enormous responsibility; a public figure herself, she knows that someone in his position can never lash out or punch down. He must, as even he put it, “choose the better angels of our nature.”不过，马友友向世界输出的远不止音乐，还有可供学习的榜样。“他正试图重振美国民主，并以一种更健康、更全面的方式推动它向前发展，”理查森说。但她也承认这是一项巨大的责任；作为公众人物，她知道处在他这个位置的人永远不能发怒或贬低他人。正如他自己所说的，他必须“选择我们本性中善良的天使”。He has his critics, and there are ways in which his extramusical work can seem like a Pollyannaish vestige of multiculturalism’s golden age. His community programming sometimes raises the hackles of locals, who most often change their minds once they meet him. And there are limits to what he can do. He’s only one person, and he can’t give his full attention to every person and place. (Shackleton said that Sound Postings spends a lot of time trying to ensure that his visits have lasting effects.)他也有批评者，而且他的音乐之外的工作在某些方面可能看起来像是多元文化主义黄金时代的一个盲目乐观的遗迹。他的社区项目有时会引发当地人的不满，但他们通常在见到他本人之后改变想法。他能做的也有局限。他毕竟只是一个人，无法对每个人和每个地方都给予全部关注。（沙克尔顿说，Sound Postings花了大量时间努力确保他的访问产生持久影响。）“This is actually the best reason for cloning,” Ax said. “If we had nine or 10 Yo-Yos, the world would look different.”“这实际上是发展克隆技术的最佳理由，”艾克斯说。“如果我们有九到十个马友友，世界会大不一样。”视频/图片：Benjamin RasmussenJoshua Barone是《纽约时报》编辑，报道古典乐和舞蹈。他也撰写关于音乐和歌剧的评论。翻译：经雷点击查看本文英文版。