本篇文章共分 5 段，將 17 世紀開始發展的器樂，從曲調的系統、樂器的製造、樂曲的主要形式，以及具代表性的作曲家維爾瓦第的作品一一加以說明陳述。

本篇考題英文原文與對應之中文翻譯整理如下。練習作答解題時若有對語意不清楚之處，請仔細查閱對照，以提升閱讀理解能力。

The Development of Instrumental Music 器樂的發展

1. 器樂發展的轉捩點

   Until the sixteenth century, almost all music was written for the voice rather than for musical instruments. Even during the Renaissance (from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century), instrumental music was, for the most part, the result of substituting an instrument for a voice in music written for singing or dancing. The seventeenth century marked the rise of music that lacked extramusical meaning. Like a mathematical equation or geometric formula, the instrumental music of the early modern era carried no explicit narrative content—it was neither a vehicle of religious expression nor a means of supporting a secular (nonreligious) vocalized text. Such music was written without consideration for the associational content traditionally provided by a set of sung lyrics. The idea of music as an aesthetic exercise, composed for its own sake rather than to serve a religious or communal purpose, was a notable feature of the seventeenth century and one that has distinguished modern Western European music from the musical traditions of Asia and Africa.

   直到 16 世紀，幾乎所有的音樂都是為聲音而不是為樂器寫的。即使在文藝復興時期（從 14 世紀到 16 世紀），器樂在大多數情況下也是為唱歌或跳舞而寫的音樂中用樂器代替聲音的結果。十七世紀標誌著缺乏外在意義的音樂的崛起。就像數學方程式或幾何公式一樣，現代早期的器樂沒有明確的敘述內容—它既不是宗教表達的工具，也不是支持世俗（非宗教）發聲文本的手段。這樣的音樂在創作時沒有考慮到傳統上由一組歌唱的歌詞所提供的聯想內容。將音樂作為一種審美活動，為其本身而創作，而不是為宗教或公共目的服務，這是十七世紀的一個顯著特點，也是現代西歐音樂與亞洲和非洲音樂傳統的區別。

2. 平均律的推出

   Not surprisingly, the rise of instrumental music was accompanied by improvements in instruments and refinements in tuning. Indeed, instrumental music came to dominate musical composition at the very moment that Western musicians were perfecting such stringed instruments as the violin, viola, and cello and such keyboard instruments as the organ and harpsichord. By the early eighteenth century, musicians were adopting the system of tuning known as equal temperament, whereby the octave was divided into twelve half-steps of equal size. Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (1722) was an attempt to popularize this system to a skeptical musical public. The new attention paid to improving instruments and systematizing tuning mirrored the efforts of scientists and philosophers to bring precision and uniformity to the tools and methods for scientific inquiry.

   毫不奇怪，器樂的興起伴隨著樂器的改進和調音的完善。事實上，就在西方音樂家完善小提琴、中提琴和大提琴等絃樂器以及風琴和大鍵琴等鍵盤樂器的時候，器樂就開始主導音樂創作。到了 18 世紀初，音樂家們開始採用被稱為「十二平均律」的曲調系統，即把八度音程分成  12 個大小相同的半音階。約翰．塞巴斯蒂安．巴赫 (Johann Sebastian Bach) 的《平均律鍵盤曲集》(Well-Tempered Clavier, 1722 年) 試圖向持懷疑態度的音樂大眾普及此一系統。對改進樂器和系統化曲調的新關注，反映了科學家和哲學家為使科學探索的工具和方法精確化和統一化所做的努力。

3. 小提琴與其他樂器的製造

   In the seventeenth century, northern Italy was the world center for the manufacture of violins. The Amati, Guarneri, and Stradivari families of Cremona, Italy, established the techniques of making high-quality violins that were sought in all of the great courts of Europe. Transmitted from father to son, the construction techniques used to produce these instruments were guarded so secretly that modern violinmakers have never successfully imitated them. Elsewhere, around 1650, earlier instruments were standardized and refined. Also, during this period amateur music making was widespread, and professional performance also took a great leap forward, as a new breed of virtuosi inspired the writing of treatises on performance techniques.

   十七世紀，意大利北部是世界小提琴製造的中心。意大利克雷莫納的阿馬蒂、瓜奈里和斯特拉迪瓦里家族建立了製造高質量小提琴的技術，在歐洲所有的大宮廷中都很受歡迎。這些樂器的製造技術由父親傳給兒子，被秘密地保護起來，以至於現代小提琴製造者從未能成功地模仿。在其他地方，1650 年左右，早期的樂器被標準化和改進。另外，在此一時期，業餘音樂創作很普遍，專業演奏也有了很大的飛躍，因為新一批的演奏家激發了關於演奏技巧的論文撰寫。

4. 主要樂曲類型

   Three main types of composition—the sonata, the suite, and the concerto—dominated seventeenth-century instrumental music. All three reflect the baroque taste for dramatic contrasts in tempo and texture. The sonata (from the Italian word for “sounded,” that is, music played and not sung) is a piece written for a few instruments—often no more than one or two. It usually consisted of three movements of contrasting tempo—fast/slow/fast—each based on a song or dance form of the time. The suite, written for any combination of instruments, is a sequence or series of movements derived from various European court or folk dances—for example, the sarabande, the pavane, the minuet, and gigue, or jig. Henry Purcell (1659-1695) in England, Francois Couperin (1668-1733) in France, and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) in Germany all contributed to the development of the suite as a musical genre. Finally, the concerto (from the same root as concert ato, which describes opposing or contrasting bodies of sound) is a composition consisting of two groups of instruments, one small and the other large, playing in dialogue. The typical baroque concerto, the concerto grosso (“large concerto”) featured several movements whose number and kind varied considerably.

   三種主要的創作類型—奏鳴曲、組曲和協奏曲—主導著十七世紀的器樂。這三種類型都反映了巴洛克時期對節奏和質地的戲劇性對比的喜好。奏鳴曲（來自意大利語，意為「聲音」，即演奏而非歌唱的音樂）是為少數樂器編寫的作品，通常不超過一兩件。它通常由三個節奏對比強烈的樂章組成—快/慢/快—每個樂章都是基於當時的歌曲或舞蹈形式。組曲是為任意樂器組合而寫的，是由各種歐洲宮廷或民間舞蹈衍生出來的一連串或一系列動作—例如，薩拉班德舞、帕瓦尼舞、小步舞和吉格舞 (也稱為吉格舞 jig)。英國的亨利．珀塞爾 (1659-1695)、法國的弗朗索瓦．庫佩林 (1668-1733) 和德國的約翰．塞巴斯蒂安．巴赫 (1685-1750) 都對組曲作為一種音樂體裁的發展作出了貢獻。最後，協奏曲（與 concert ato 同源，描述對立或對比的聲音體）是由兩組樂器組成的作品，一組小，另一組大，以對話形式演奏。典型的巴洛克協奏曲，總協奏曲（即「大型協奏曲」）有幾個樂章，其數量和種類有很大的不同。

5. 維爾瓦第的作品

   The leading Italian instrumental composer of the baroque era was Antonio Vivaldi (1678 -1741). Vivaldi wrote some 450 concertos. He systematized the concerto grosso into a three-movement form (fast/slow/fast) and increased the distinctions between solo and ensemble groups in each movement. Of the many exciting compositions Vivaldi wrote for solo violin and ensemble, the most glorious is The Four Seasons, a group of four violin concertos, each of which musically describes a single season.

   巴洛克時代意大利主要的器樂作曲家是安東尼奧．維瓦爾第 (1678-1741)。維瓦爾第寫了大約 450 首協奏曲。他將總協奏曲系統化為三樂章的形式（快/慢/快），並在每個樂章中增加了獨奏和合奏的區別。維瓦爾第為小提琴獨奏和合奏寫了許多激動人心的作品，其中最輝煌燦爛的是《四季》，這是一組四首小提琴協奏曲，每一首都在音樂上描述了一個季節。