It has been said by some experts that to understand Poland you must understand the composer Frederic Chopin.
有好些专家说过，要想了解波兰，就得了解作曲家弗雷德里克·肖邦。

The creative geniu one of the most original of the 19th century, was born outside Warsaw in 1810 to a French father and Polish mother and in a proud nation suffering under partition and divided among occupying Russian Prussians and Austrians.
这位才华洋溢的天才是19世纪最具独创性的作曲家之一，其父亲是法国人，而母亲则是波兰人，于1810年出生于华沙的近郊；而当时，波兰，这个国人为之自豪的国度却正被俄罗斯，普鲁士以及奥地利各方豪强割据而深受分裂之苦。

Thirteen years before Chopin was born, the occupying powers even abolished the very name "Poland". The country had been crucified, as the poets of the Romantic era put it, awaiting a resurrection which did not occur until 1918.
在肖邦出生的十三年前，这些割据势力竟然把“波兰”这个名字都废除了。正如浪漫时期的诗人所说的那样，这片大地仿若被钉上了十字架般受尽磨难，等待着复活的一天，而直到1918年，它才重获新生。

The always short and physically frail Frederic Chopin moved with his family to Warsaw as a newborn and lived there until he was 20 when he left his homeland for good. Yet although he spent almost half of his life in Pari traditional Polish music permeates his compositions and he always considered Warsaw his hometown. From Warsaw's historic Old Town down Krakowskie Przedmiescie Street, along the Royal Way to Lazienki Park, you can walk down the same streets young Frederic strolled, past palaces and churches in which he gave performances.
身材矮小，身体羸弱的弗雷德里 克·肖邦还是新生儿的时候就随家人来到了华沙，直到二十岁那年他才离开了祖国，再也没回来。尽管他几乎半生都身处巴黎，然而传统的波兰音乐深入到他的作品，而他也一直视华沙为自己的故里。从华沙历史悠久的老城区到克拉科夫郊区街，沿着皇家之路到瓦金基公园，你能踏上这些年少的肖邦曾经徜徉徘徊的街道，经过那些他曾经在里面演奏过的宫殿和教堂。

And the city never ceased being proud of him either. The $28 million, interactive Fryderyk Chopin Museum opened last March to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the composer's birth. Originally a two-roomed museum with dank gloomy basements in the city's 17th Century Ostrogski Castle, it has been transformed into a five-storey exhibition which makes good use of modern technology to tell the story of one of the greatest pianists in history.
而这座城市一直也以他为荣。耗资2.8亿美元，开放互动式的弗雷德里克·肖邦博物馆于去年三月开幕，旨在纪念这位音乐家诞辰200周年。原来的博物馆位于17世纪的奥斯拙斯基皇宫，有两个展室和一间阴暗潮湿的地下室。如今，它已经被修整为一座拥有五层展厅的博物馆，还将现代科技很好地结合在一起，把历史上其中一位最伟大的音乐家的生平展现给众人。

Visitors are given a plastic ticket which, once swiped past the blue light readers at the entrance, can be used to access information on touch screens in eight languages.
游客可以得到一张塑料入场券，只要在门口蓝光的读卡器刷过，就可以凭此在拥有八种语言的触屏电脑上获取各类信息。

In the cavernous brick vaults of the basement you can select an etude (a musical composition), place the score on a glass panel above the keys of a 19th-century piano that belonged to Franz Liszt and listen as a pianist's hands play the piece on a wall projection.
在一个如山洞似的砖砌拱顶地下室里，你可以选择一首练习曲，在一台十九世纪时属于弗朗茨·李斯特的钢琴前，把乐谱放在琴键上方的一块玻璃面板上，然后聆听，同时，墙上的投影会现出一位钢琴大师弹奏乐曲的画面。

"It's kind of a holy place," Keiko Kondo, a visitor from Japan told me beside the piano. "Lots of people say Chopin is very romantic and delicate. I don't think so. I feel a power and a strength," she said.
“这里犹如一座圣殿，”来自日本的游客近藤景子站在钢琴旁边跟我说道。“很多人都认为肖邦生性浪漫，为人敏感。我不这样认为。我感受到的是一种力量与韧劲，”她说。

In the kid's room, children can sit on bean bags in large colourful portholes to watch a puppet theatre show the 14-year-old Frederic wrote, or try to reconstruct a tune whose notes have fallen off a scale.
在儿童室，孩子们可以坐在豆袋沙发上，透过多彩的观察孔看肖邦14岁时写的木偶戏，或是重组一段有部分音符掉下的小曲。

Among the 7,000 items in the museum's collection are a lock of Chopin's hair and a gold pocket watch the Italian soprano Angelica Catalani gave the nine-year-old prodigy after one of his concerts.
在这7000多样收藏品当中，有一束肖邦的头发和一只金怀表——那是一名叫安琪利卡·卡塔兰尼的意大利女高音在这位神童九岁时一场演奏会后赠予他的。

Just up the road from the museum on the Royal Way is an apartment where Frederic, together with his family, lived for the last three years of his life in Warsaw.
顺着博物馆所在的皇家之路往前走有一间公寓，肖邦在华沙最后三年就是与家人居住在此地。

It is a little difficult to find, located at the end of a corridor on the second floor of the Academy of Fine Arts. There are few signs and I had to be careful not to tread on the works students were making in the corridors outside the lecture rooms.
那套公寓位于美术学院二楼走廊的尽头，有点难找。由于标识少得可怜，所以我得非常小心，以免踩到学生们在课室外的走廊里绘制的作品。

The drawing room has been reconstructed from a sketch made in 1832 and is decorated with period furniture. On a Buchholtz piano, similar to one Frederic owned, is a score of his Second Piano Concerto, with corrections in his own hand. It was in this room that Chopin gave the first performances of this concerto.
画室是根据1832年的一张草图重新修建而成的，摆放着古典家私。在一台布赫霍尔茨钢琴（近似于肖邦拥有的一架钢琴）上，放着他的《第二钢琴协奏曲》的乐谱，还保留着他自己亲手做的修正。就是在这个房间里，肖邦首次演奏该协奏曲。

The windows look down onto Krakowskie Przedmiescie Street, Warsaw's most elegant, as well as the wrought-iron gate of the city's university where Frederic studied and a church where he played organ during Mass.
从窗口望向克拉科夫郊区街，可以看到华沙最雅致的风景线，还能看到肖邦曾就读大学的铁门和当年他在弥撒时演奏过管风琴的一座教堂。

The Church of the Holy Cross is a few steps down the street. Inside a pillar on the left-hand side of the nave is an urn containing Chopin's heart which, according to his wishe was smuggled home by his elder sister, Ludwika.
沿着这条大街走几步就可以看到圣十字教堂。在教堂中殿左边一根柱子里面有一个瓮，里面存放了肖邦的心脏，那是肖邦的姐姐鲁德维卡根据他的心愿而私运回故里的。

The young Frederic would often walk down the Royal Way, visiting friends or going to cafés and bookstores. The route is marked by black granite benches which play different Chopin compositions.
年少的弗雷德里克常常会沿着皇家之路散步，探望一下朋友或是逛逛咖啡店和书店。该路线现在点缀着黑色的花岗岩长椅，而这些椅子还能播放肖邦不同的曲目。

If you follow the Royal Way you will arrive at Lazienki Park. If you visit during summer you can attend the free open air concerts on Sundays given by pianists from all over the world. It is the perfect place to hear Chopin's music, the power and beauty of which was once described by his contemporary composer Robert Schumann as "cannon buried in flowers".
如果你沿着皇家之路走就会到达瓦金基公园。如果你夏天来这里，就可以参加星期天的免费露天钢琴演奏会，有来自世界各地的钢琴家演奏。这是聆听肖邦音乐的最佳地点，其音乐中蕴含的力量和美感正如与他同时期的作曲家罗伯特·舒曼曾经所描述的那样，是“掩藏在鲜花中的大炮”。