Pronouncing composer's names
Yakov Horenstein
Does it rhyme with PoohLank, or should it be PoohLonk?
Also, how about Messiaen?
Yakov
M. Ross Davis
They are both French: in Poulenc, the 'e' is nasal because of the
following 'n', and the same rule applies for Messiaen.
--
Matthew Ross Davis Phone: 703 231 5799 | Bass-Baritone, Graduate Servant
Fax: 703 231 5034 | Department of Music
Internet: ross....@vt.edu | Virginia Tech
http://www.music.vt.edu/ | Blacksburg, VA 24061-0240, USA
VIVA L'OPERA!
James C Liu
>In article <3b5q49$2...@sgi.iunet.it>, ya...@iunet.it (Yakov Horenstein) wrote:
>> What is the correct pronunciation for Poulenc?
>> Does it rhyme with PoohLank, or should it be PoohLonk?
>> Also, how about Messiaen?
>They are both French: in Poulenc, the 'e' is nasal because of the
>following 'n', and the same rule applies for Messiaen.
Ah, but there are some regional variations in pronunciation (e.g., if I
recall correctly, Pierre Boulez is of Alsatian origin, and pronounces the
"z.") I've been taught that "Poulenc" is to be pronounced like the English
word "plank," with an "oo" between the p and l. I've also been taught
Mess - ee - nasal "an." Though that was a while ago ...
--
/James C.S. Liu, MD "I went to a general store, but they
jl...@world.std.com wouldn't let me buy anything specific."
Department of Medicine
New England Med Ctr, Boston MA -- Steve Wright
HenryFogel
writes:
>, Pierre Boulez is of Alsatian origin, and pronounces the
>"z.") I've been taught that "Poulenc" is to be pronounced like the
English
>word "plank," with an "oo" between the p and l. I've also been taught
>Mess - ee - nasal "an." Though that was a while ago ...
--
You are correct on the pronunciation of all of the above, but I fear not
so on the origins of Boulez. He is now in Chicago with CSO, and I finally
got up the nerve to ask him about the pronunciation of his name. He
points out that there are a number of French proper names (he gave me
other examples, which I cannot remember) where the "Z" is pronounced in an
"EZ" ending -- and some localities as well. He is not Alsatian, but
French for many generations. He said that his brother did some research,
and thinks that at one time the name was "Bouley", and in a handwriting
misreading the "y" became a "z", and somehow became pronounced. He noted
that the "Z" is pronounced in Berlioz as well, though some Americans and
Englishmen erroneously omit it.
Henry Fogel
Carol McAlpine
in English PoohLENK, though many people mistakenly use PoohLAHNK and if you
say PoohLENK sooner or later someone will "correct" you & try to persuade
you to "PoohLAHNK." I think perhaps the "PoohLAHNK" is an example of
hyper-foreignness & is the same impulse that gives us lahnjerAY (a
pronunciation that I understand no French person would understand) for
women's underwear. (Went into Bergdorf's one time & asked to be directed to
underwear & got a very funny look from the salesclerk I had asked
for directions. They had good underwear, though. Hmmmm.)
Carol McAlpine
r0ch...@ulkyvx.louisville.edu
I've heard that one pronounces the l's in Villa-Lobos (Veela Lowbush), since
the name is Brazilian (Portuguese language), not Spanish. Those radio
announcers do it the other way.
Ray Cheng
PS. A pet peeve of mine is the tendency to Franckify the name Beijing
---it's bay-jing, not bay-zhing (hard j sound). We'll work on Hunan (huh-nan,
not hoo-nahn) later.
Robert S. Coren
Carol McAlpine <cmca...@delphi.com> wrote:
>According to my bassoon teacher, who knew Poulenc, his name was pronounced
>in English PoohLENK, though many people mistakenly use PoohLAHNK and if you
>say PoohLENK sooner or later someone will "correct" you & try to persuade
>you to "PoohLAHNK." I think perhaps the "PoohLAHNK" is an example of
>hyper-foreignness & is the same impulse that gives us lahnjerAY (a
>pronunciation that I understand no French person would understand) for
>women's underwear.
This is not entirely fair. The most common pronunciation of the
combination "en" in French is AHN (more or less -- actually nasalized
AH); there are a few exceptions, and Poulenc's name happens to be one
of them. Somebody who had studied French but never encountered the
composer's name could reasonably be forgiven for guessing wrong on
this one. On the other hand, the combination "ie" (as in "lingerie")
is *never* pronounced AY in French.
--
|-------Robert Coren (co...@spdcc.com)-------------------------|
| Aw, well... I guess some of us talks too much, anyway. |
| --Rackety Coon Chile (Walt Kelly) |
|------------------Don't blame Steve for anything I post.------|
Alan Chapman
>I've heard that one pronounces the l's in Villa-Lobos (Veela Lowbush), since
>the name is Brazilian (Portuguese language), not Spanish. Those radio
>announcers do it the other way.
Wait a minute, Ray! I always get his name right on the air (and Poulenc
too for that matter).
Now here's another one: A friend who is a well-informed professor of
French has assured me that one should pronounce the "l" in Milhaud.
(That's right: Mee-loh, not Mee-yoh.)
And yet another: Everybody pronounces Ginastera's name HEE-nastera.
Slonimsky, in Baker's, indicates that the composer (remember, he was
Argentine) preferred ZHEE-nastera).
All informed opinions welcome.
Alan Chapman
KUSC-FM (91.5)
Los Angeles
Robert S. Coren
Alan Chapman <cha...@oxy.edu> wrote:
>
>Now here's another one: A friend who is a well-informed professor of
>French has assured me that one should pronounce the "l" in Milhaud.
>(That's right: Mee-loh, not Mee-yoh.)
However well-informed in general, your friend is mistaken on this
point. I spent two summers at Aspen in Milhaud's composition class,
and never heard the l pronounced by him or anyone else.
A story: toward the end of one class, Milhaud took time out to call
the bus station, since he was expecting a visitor; on learning that
the bus, and hence the visitor, had not yet arrived, Milhaud said,
"Please ask him to call Mr. Milhaud when he arrives." After hanging up
the phone, he said to us, "I bet they spelled it M-E-O."
Everything one knows about pronunciation rules has to be suspended for
proper names, which have their own histories. I remember being told
about the imminent arrival at my place of work of two Frenchmen
surnamed Leguinier and Negaret. In each case I guessed, based on my
knowledge of French, that the final consonant was silent; I was wrong
both times.
Vincent E. Kargatis
--
Vincent Kargatis -- Space Physics & | "...it was more really like,
Astronomy, Rice U., Houston, TX | here are some Ginsu knives - how
[v...@spacsun.rice.edu] | many can you hold in your bum?"
[http://spacsun.rice.edu/~vek/vek.html] | -- Nigel Tufnel, Spinal Tap
Erica N. Schulman
Kargatis) says:
>Which syllable is accented in Ligeti?
The first, I believe.
r0ch...@ulkyvx.louisville.edu
> Ray Cheng wrote:
>
>>I've heard that one pronounces the l's in Villa-Lobos (Veela Lowbush), since
>>the name is Brazilian (Portuguese language), not Spanish. Those radio
>>announcers do it the other way.
> Wait a minute, Ray! I always get his name right on the air (and Poulenc
> too for that matter).
>
Sorry, Alan. I only meant those radio announcers I've heard.
>
> Alan Chapman
> KUSC-FM (91.5)
> Los Angeles
So What about Saint-Saens? Silent final s?
MTSA...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu
class at a branch campus of Lamar University in Pt. Arthur, Texas.
She got the WC (Debussy) as well: on one of her papers it appeared
as W. C. Claude. One of my other favorites was the great French
female trumpet player, Marie Sondre. You can imagine what they did
to Szymanowski; many of them we simply couldn't figure out at all.
--MTS
In article <dancertmD...@netcom.com>
danc...@netcom.com (Bruce Keller) writes:
>
>Yakov Horenstein (ya...@iunet.it) wrote:
>: What is the correct pronunciation for Poulenc?
>: Does it rhyme with PoohLank, or should it be PoohLonk?
>: Also, how about Messiaen?
>
>: Yakov
>You've gotten enough feed back on speaking French, but I have to tell a
>story my theory teacher once told me. She also taught general ed music
>appreciation at a community college. On a test, she asked a question
>about the French Impressionist school of composers. The answer (in the
>fill in the blank quiz) was this:
>
>WC
>
>She thought and thought until she was able to figure out what the student
>had ment:
>
>Debussy!
>--
> danc...@netcom.com
Alain DAGHER
: What is the correct pronunciation for Poulenc?
: Does it rhyme with PoohLank, or should it be PoohLonk?
: Also, how about Messiaen?
The 'en' in Poulenc is pronounced like the last syllable of my first
name and the 'en' in Messiaen isn't.
OK?
--
Best wishes,
Alain Dagher
Montreal Neurological Institute
E-Mail: al...@pet.mni.mcgill.ca
Paul Rapoport
Hungarian and not Italian, the stress is on the first syllable.
--
========================== =================================
Dr. Paul Rapoport e-mail: rapo...@mcmaster.ca
Chair, Department of Music tel: 905 529 7070, ext. 2 4217
McMaster University fax: 905 527 6793
Yakov Horenstein
: Which syllable is accented in Ligeti?
I believe it's LIgeti, with the accent on the LI.
Yakov
: --
Jacques C. Wenger
----------
Jacques
Andrew Clarke
Ca veut dire qu'on dit "Poul-AINc"? Mais pourquoi? On ne dit "AINfant
terrible" ni "Mainten-AIN-t", m'AIN-fin?
Sentiments respectueuses,
Andre J Leclerc,
Centre d'etudes minoguiennes,
Ecole normale superieure de Junee
Nouveau Pays des Galles
Margaret Mikulska
>In article <941129.09...@cougar.cc.oxy.edu>,
>Alan Chapman <cha...@oxy.edu> wrote:
>>
>>Now here's another one: A friend who is a well-informed professor of
>>French has assured me that one should pronounce the "l" in Milhaud.
>>(That's right: Mee-loh, not Mee-yoh.)
>
>However well-informed in general, your friend is mistaken on this
>point. I spent two summers at Aspen in Milhaud's composition class,
>and never heard the l pronounced by him or anyone else.
His name is Provencal, not French: thus the pronunciation with "y"
instead of "l".
-Margaret
Yakov Horenstein
While we're on the subject, how about Ferenc Fricsay?
I always thought it was pronounced Ferentz Frickshy.
Yakov
Carl Tait
cha...@oxy.edu (Alan Chapman) writes:
>
>Everybody pronounces Ginastera's name HEE-nastera.
>Slonimsky, in Baker's, indicates that the composer (remember, he was
>Argentine) preferred ZHEE-nastera).
Here's the relevant quote from Baker's:
His father was of Catalan descent, and Ginastera often preferred
to pronounce his name with a soft "g," as in the Catalan language;
the standard pronunciation, however, is with a hard "g."
Unless Slonimsky is using "soft" and "hard" in a nonstandard way,
this means that Ginastera preferred "JEE-nastera" (soft G as in "gem,"
not hard G as in "gold"). I've never heard *anyone* use the hard G
pronunciation.
To add to the confusion, both the Columbia Encyclopedia and the
Random House Unabridged Dictionary continue to list "HEE-nastera"
as the only pronunciation.
Carl Tait
Varda Ullman Novick
<snip>
: And yet another: Everybody pronounces Ginastera's name HEE-nastera.
: Argentine) preferred ZHEE-nastera).
In Argentina, unlike many other Spanish-speaking countries, the
original pronunciation of many non-Spanish names is preserved. For example,
people whose Italian names have a double-L pronounce it as an "L," not as
a "Y" (or, in Argentina, a ZH or SH). Ginastera is not a Spanish name and
that's probably the way it was pronounced before his ancestors settled in
Argentina.
--
Varda Ullman Novick
vuno...@netcom.com
r0ch...@ulkyvx.louisville.edu
And is it Gay-ork or Jorj Solti?
Ray
Stan Szpakowicz
>
>While we're on the subject, how about Ferenc Fricsay?
>I always thought it was pronounced Ferentz Frickshy.
Hungarian "cs" = English "ch", just a bit less soft. Or German "tsch".
--
Dr. Stan Szpakowicz :: Univ. of Ottawa :: Dept. of Computer Science
sz...@csi.uottawa.ca :: tel. +613 564 2450 :: fax +613 564 9486
(also at sz...@dal.carleton.ca, Carleton Univ.)
Presser Staff
> Lutoslawski, is Loot-o-SWA-skee, or thereabouts.
EXCUSE ME, I should have written Loot-oh-SWAV-skee. After I posted, I
noticed that I left out the v sound for the w. Polish has two l's.
One is like the English l. The other has a diagonal cross stem in
up stroke. The closest approximate sound in English is "w".
Tom Broido
Exec. V.P.
Theodore Presser Co.
R. Wilmer
>Yakov Horenstein (ya...@iunet.it) wrote:
>: What is the correct pronunciation for Poulenc?
>: Does it rhyme with PoohLank, or should it be PoohLonk?
>: Also, how about Messiaen?
>
>The 'en' in Poulenc is pronounced like the last syllable of my first
>name and the 'en' in Messiaen isn't.
>
>OK?
>
>--
>Best wishes,
>
>Alain Dagher
Not OK. The ``en'' in both Poulenc and Messiaen are pronouced like
``Alain''. So is the ``en'' in Benjamin (as a French name or word--meaning
younger son).
Richard
R. Wilmer
>In article <D01xH...@spdcc.com> co...@spdcc.com (Robert S. Coren) writes:
>>In article <941129.09...@cougar.cc.oxy.edu>,
>>Alan Chapman <cha...@oxy.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>Now here's another one: A friend who is a well-informed professor of
>>>French has assured me that one should pronounce the "l" in Milhaud.
>>>(That's right: Mee-loh, not Mee-yoh.)
>>
>>However well-informed in general, your friend is mistaken on this
>>point.
He is indeed.
>>I spent two summers at Aspen in Milhaud's composition class,
>>and never heard the l pronounced by him or anyone else.
>
>His name is Provencal, not French: thus the pronunciation with "y"
>instead of "l".
>
>-Margaret
Margaret is correct.
Richard
R. Iain Farquhar
>From: pre...@netaxs.com (Presser staff)
>Subject: Re: Pronouncing composer's names
>Date: 2 Dec 1994 14:03:15 GMT
>Lutoslawski, is Loot-o-SWA-skee, or thereabouts.
Loot-o-SWAV-skee
The "l" must have slash through it which is then pronounced almost exactly
like an English "w". The Polish town "Lodz". with a slash through the "L"
is pronounced "Wooodj"
>Zwilich is Zwi-lick.
>Finally, Ligeti is most definitely a first syllable accented name, as in
>Ligeti-split.
Books I've read on pronouncing Hungarian say that the first syllable accent in
this language is a weak one. More important in Hungarian is to pronounce all
syllables evenly without much stress differentiation. Seeing as this is
considerably different than English and other Indo-European languages, its
kind of hard to illustrate in a written medium!
Iain -- an amateur linguist (:-)
> -Tom Broido
> Exec V.P.
> Theodore Presser Co.
Francois Velde
>alain@bottom (Alain DAGHER) writes:
> >The 'en' in Poulenc is pronounced like the last syllable of my first
> >name and the 'en' in Messiaen isn't.
> >
> >OK?
>
>``Alain''. So is the ``en'' in Benjamin (as a French name or word--meaning
>younger son).
Much as I hate to correct you, Richard, you are wrong on this one.
In French, Messiaen rhymes with prescient, impatient and Ossian.
It sounds like Mess-yawn (no judgment value implied), whereas
Poulenc sounds like Poo-lank. (and benjamin means youngest son,
younger son is cadet).
--
Francois Velde
Johns Hopkins University
ve...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu
Margaret Mikulska
>
>While we're on the subject, how about Ferenc Fricsay?
>I always thought it was pronounced Ferentz Frickshy.
No, not very close. In Hungarian, "cs" is a digraph for the sound
represented in English by "tch" or "ch" (as in "channel"). "ay" is
pronounced like "y" in "by", "my", etc. So it's "FREE-chy".
-Margaret
Carol McAlpine
A Brazilian pianist of my acquaintance who often plays the music of
Villa-Lobos pronounces the name Villa (as in what we all want for a few
weeks in the south of France) Lobos (as in the second part of Los Lobos)
when he is speaking English. As he is a classical musician, a
well-educated native speaker of Brazilian Portuguese, and an excellent
speaker of English I take his word for the way Villa-Lobos should be said in
an English sentence.
Ginastera was of Catalan descent and is said to have preferred the Catalan
pronunciation of his name, which would make it ZHEEnastera.
Carol McAlpine
richard hihn
pronunciation of composer's names, how SHOULD one pronounce Beethoven?
Should it not be "Bay-TOFF-en" and not the usual "BAY-tow-ven"? I'm
sure tradition will insure that the latter continues to be the case,
but I was just wondering. It does seem that correct pronunciation
matters in some cases and in others it does not.
Dick
richard hihn
: Yakov Horenstein (ya...@iunet.it) wrote:
: : What is the correct pronunciation for Poulenc?
: : Does it rhyme with PoohLank, or should it be PoohLonk?
: : Also, how about Messiaen?
: : Yakov
: **************************
: You've gotten enough feed back on speaking French, but I have to tell a
: story my theory teacher once told me. She also taught general ed music
: appreciation at a community college. On a test, she asked a question
: about the French Impressionist school of composers. The answer (in the
: fill in the blank quiz) was this:
:
: WC
:
: She thought and thought until she was able to figure out what the student
: had ment:
:
: Debussy!
: --
: danc...@netcom.com
See the biography of P.D.Q. Bach for a similar joke regarding Debussy
and water closets. (:))
Dick
David Labell
>>I've heard that one pronounces the l's in Villa-Lobos (Veela Lowbush), since
Exactly right, Alan. Just as the Italian word for "chicken" is POLLO (POE-low,
not POE-YO). The double l is pronounced "y" only by Spanish speakers outside
Spain, and outside Colombia, too, where they use a "zh" sound.
>Now here's another one: A friend who is a well-informed professor of
>French has assured me that one should pronounce the "l" in Milhaud.
>(That's right: Mee-loh, not Mee-yoh.)
I speak French, but I'm no professor. Milhaud was Jewish, and I suspect that
his name came into French from some other source. I have never heard it
pronounced any way but mee-YOH.
I listened to your excellent station while I was in LA in September. I may
have heard you on the air, correctly pronouncing the names of many of my
favorite composers!
"Ahhh, BACHHHH!"
David Labell
>So What about Saint-Saens? Silent final s?
I thought I knew the right way to pronounce his name, but in recent years,
I've heard all kinds of pseudo-authoritative pronunciations that differ from
the one I've always used:
SAN SAWN
Accent on each syllable. Each part is only one syllable. The N's are nasal.
The first syllable rhymes with CAN, the second with AW, both ending with nasal
N.
The local classical DJ, who really knows his stuff, adds a sibilant S at the
end. I've heard others twist the second half so it has 2 syllables. I disagree
with these practices, however.
Varda Ullman Novick
: Exactly right, Alan. Just as the Italian word for "chicken" is POLLO (POE-low,
: not POE-YO). The double l is pronounced "y" only by Spanish speakers outside
: Spain, and outside Colombia, too, where they use a "zh" sound.
And Argentina and Uruguay. :-)
Jay Winick
>From: dla...@paltech.com (David Labell)
>Subject: Re: Pronouncing composer's names
>>So What about Saint-Saens? Silent final s?
>I thought I knew the right way to pronounce his name, but in recent years,
>I've heard all kinds of pseudo-authoritative pronunciations that differ from
>the one I've always used:
>SAN SAWN
The correct pronunciation is Saah Sahn (ah as in Song). At least this is the
way I have always heard it pronounced (Canadian radio personalities are
usually very good in their pronunciations).
Jean-Pierre Trevisani
>In article <CzvqD...@world.std.com>, jl...@world.std.com (James C Liu)
>writes:
>
>>, Pierre Boulez is of Alsatian origin, and pronounces the
>>"z.") I've been taught that "Poulenc" is to be pronounced like the
>English
[snip one]
{snip second poster]
>He is not Alsatian, but French for many generations.
Alsatians _are_ French. Always have, always will.
Jean-Pierre
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jean-Pierre Trevisani
Project Leader Geac-CLSI Inc.
320 Nevada Street
Phone: (617) 965-6310 x419 Newtonville, MA 02160
Fax : (617) 969-1928 USA
Email: j...@clsi.us.geac.com (internet) Canto Ergo Sum
Render unto Geac what is Geac's and leave my opinions to me.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jean-Pierre Trevisani
Project Leader Geac-CLSI Inc.
320 Nevada Street
James C Liu
>In article <3b80t4$p...@newsbf01.news.aol.com> henry...@aol.com (HenryFogel) writes:
>>In article <CzvqD...@world.std.com>, jl...@world.std.com (James C Liu)
>>writes:
>>
>>>, Pierre Boulez is of Alsatian origin, and pronounces the
>>>"z.") I've been taught that "Poulenc" is to be pronounced like the
>>English
>[snip one]
>{snip second poster]
>>He is not Alsatian, but French for many generations.
>Alsatians _are_ French. Always have, always will.
Correct me if my ignorance leads me astray (more than likely in this case),
but I thought that (1) the Alsace region has historically been an area of
contention between the Germans and the French; (2) there are strong German
ethnic roots mingled in with French there; (3) regional pronunciation of
French names may not be the same, depending on ethnic origins, etc.
How far off base is this?
--
/James C.S. Liu, MD "There is always an easy answer to
jl...@world.std.com every human problem - neat, plausible,
Department of Medicine and wrong."
New England Med Ctr, Boston MA -- H. L. Mencken
Jean-Pierre Trevisani
>And yet another: Everybody pronounces Ginastera's name HEE-nastera.
>Slonimsky, in Baker's, indicates that the composer (remember, he was
>Argentine) preferred ZHEE-nastera).
pronounciation is the one the composer favored.
>All informed opinions welcome.
For some odd reason the one that bugs me the most is "Federico Mompou".
This Catalan composer studied in Paris with Faure and others and is often
thought of as French. I always hear the name pronounced 'mon(nasal)-pooh'
It should be mon-poh-ooh. (mo as in more + "n", tonic accent on poh)
JP
karen mercedes
going to offend?
-- Karen Mercedes
+---------------------------+
| I believe |
| That since my life began |
| The most I've had is just |
| A talent to amuse... |
| -- Noel Coward |
+---------------------------+
--
<*><*><*> The views above are not necessarily those of my company <*><*><*>
The von Huene Workshop
POUlenk and MiLOW because the composers were both Provencal and that
these were the common Languedoc pronounciations.
--
-------------------------------
Eric Haas
von Huene Workshop, Inc.
65 Boylston Street
Francois Velde
>>henry...@aol.com (HenryFogel) writes:
>>>jl...@world.std.com (James C Liu) >>>writes:
>>>
>>>>, Pierre Boulez is of Alsatian origin, and pronounces the
>>>>"z.") I've been taught that "Poulenc" is to be pronounced like the
>>>English
>>[snip one]
>>{snip second poster]
>>>He is not Alsatian, but French for many generations.
>
>>Alsatians _are_ French. Always have, always will.
>
> Correct me if my ignorance leads me astray (more than likely in this case),
>but I thought that (1) the Alsace region has historically been an area of
>contention between the Germans and the French; (2) there are strong German
>ethnic roots mingled in with French there; (3) regional pronunciation of
>French names may not be the same, depending on ethnic origins, etc.
>How far off base is this?
0) Boulez is a Savoyard name, not Alsatian.
0a) That does not help to predict whether the final z is pronounced, there
are examples both ways, as with the -oz ending which is also Savoyard
(Michel Corboz does not sound it, but Berlioz rhymes with bellicose)
1) Alsace has been part of France, on and off (mostly on), since the 1670s,
which is a decent while. It's been a point of contention only since
there has been a German state to contend over it. The major
interruption was 1871-1919. The word is that the Alsatians were
not too happy about it, nor were they during the 1940-44 period.
2) There are undoubtedly strong German roots, noticeable in names of people
and places, and in the local language which is a dialect of German.
But that has a secondary bearing on whether they are French.
6) Yes, regional factors introduce variation in pronunciation, but not always
in a predictable way, as noted above. Other example: Schlumberger,
as Alsatian as you can get, is pronounced with a silent final 'r'.
--
Francois Velde
Johns Hopkins University
Francois Velde
>dla...@paltech.com (David Labell) writes:
>>From: dla...@paltech.com (David Labell)
>
>
>>I thought I knew the right way to pronounce his name, but in recent years,
>>I've heard all kinds of pseudo-authoritative pronunciations that differ from
>>the one I've always used:
>
>>SAN SAWN
>
>The correct pronunciation is Saah Sahn (ah as in Song). At least this is the
>way I have always heard it pronounced (Canadian radio personalities are
>usually very good in their pronunciations).
Not in this instance, they aren't. Final s is sounded. At least it always
is in France, if that's relevant to the question.
Gregory Germain
: In article <CzvqD...@world.std.com>, jl...@world.std.com (James C Liu)
: writes:
This reminds me of a very funny event. I was sitting in the concert hall
and a very well-dressed gentlemen in his 40s says to his date "ah, the
next piece is one of my favorites. It is by Schubear" (I suppose, the
french pronounciation of Schubert).
-- Greg
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gregory Germain
350 Steuart Street
San Francisco, California 94105-1250
(415) 788-5000
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bradford Kellogg
This reminds me of the time I was listening to a college radio station
in New York City. The young woman announcer was probably reading from a
list prepared by someone else. At the conclusion of a Milhaud piece,
she pronounced the composer's name: Duh-RY-us Mill-hawd.
--
Bradford Kellogg __ _ "There is nothing,
br...@viewlogic.com \_) ( ) absolutely nothing,
_________ \ / \ ________ quite so worth doing
\ \_____\__/___)/ / as simply messing
\ \_ / about in boats."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(_\~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Celia Courtright
On a related question, I've been confused lately on the pronunciation of Handel. Is it
pronounced Han-del, Hon-del, Hen-del, or something else? When I asked a German
native (who I assumed would know the correct pronounciation) she told me that in
English, the name is spelled wrong anyway (Haendel). So, which is right?
Celia Courtright
Michael Kilpatrick
>Celia Courtright
Handel has always been spelled such, with an umlaut (sic?) over the a,
as far as I'm aware, whether printed by a German or a Brit. If they
can't print the umlaut they don't change the spelling. (At least I've
never seen it). Despite the fact the we usually try to pronounce
composers names correctly (e.g. saying "Vargner" not "Wagner") the
British don't tend to say "Hendel", probably because Handel became an
Englishman, and we have thus Anglicised the name.
Michael
Randall C. Poe
> In <941129.09...@cougar.cc.oxy.edu>,
> cha...@oxy.edu (Alan Chapman) writes:
> >
> >Everybody pronounces Ginastera's name HEE-nastera.
> >Slonimsky, in Baker's, indicates that the composer (remember, he was
> >Argentine) preferred ZHEE-nastera).
>
>
> His father was of Catalan descent, and Ginastera often preferred
> to pronounce his name with a soft "g," as in the Catalan language;
> the standard pronunciation, however, is with a hard "g."
>
> Unless Slonimsky is using "soft" and "hard" in a nonstandard way,
> this means that Ginastera preferred "JEE-nastera" (soft G as in "gem,"
> not hard G as in "gold"). I've never heard *anyone* use the hard G
> pronunciation.
>
> To add to the confusion, both the Columbia Encyclopedia and the
> Random House Unabridged Dictionary continue to list "HEE-nastera"
> as the only pronunciation.
>
> Carl Tait
>
In Spanish, the soft pronunciation for G is the same as spanish J, which
sounds like English "h" or perhaps "kh". Before an I, the G would
ordinarily be soft.
Based on other postings on this thread, though, I guess the name is not originally
Spanish in descent. I can't speak for Catalan pronunciation, but it seems
plausible that the J/soft G sound could be "ZHEE", since it is in Portuguese.
(A Brazilian fellow I knew pronounced his name, Jose, as "Zho-say").
Margaret Mikulska
>I was given to understand that Poulenc and Milhaud were pronounced
>POUlenk and MiLOW because the composers were both Provencal and that
>these were the common Languedoc pronounciations.
"Milhaud" is pronounced /mee-yo/ exactly because the name is Provencal.
You're actually pretty much right, I believe, about the "common Languedoc
pronunciation" - by which, I guess, you mean various Occitan languages
- but Provencal is an exception when it comes to "lh".
-Margaret
Olivier Michel
----------
If you're talking about Camille Saint-Saens, in France, I always heard it with the
final s sounded. In phonetic (sp?) it is :
Saint : [s e\t]
Saens : [s a\t s]
(my notation for spelling phonetic )
epsilon + tilda upon it : e\t
a + tilda upon it : a\t
--
Olivier MICHEL Email : mic...@lri.lri.fr
Laboratoire LRI - Universite Paris Sud : Olivier...@lri.lri.fr
Bat. 490 - bureau 11 Fax : 33-1-69-41-65-86
91405 ORSAY CEDEX Phone : 33-1-69-41-76-01
FRANCE
Bruce...@brecant.worldbank.org
In article <1994Dec7.2...@hfsi.hfsi.com>, <goer...@hfsi.com> writes:
> Of course, after they're dead, does it really matter? Who are you
> going to offend?
>
> -- Karen Mercedes
>
Me, for one.
Regards,
Bruce
Robert S. Coren
I believe that when Georg Friedrich Ha"ndel (or Haendel) settled in
England, he adopted (or had foisted on him) the Anglicized name of
"George Friderick [sic] Handel" -- no umlaut, no following e. It is
therefore correct to call him (using pseudo-phonetic English spelling)
"Hendel" as in German or "Handle" as in English. "Hondle" (i.e., as it
if were spelled "handel" in German) is wrong, and should be reserved
for Jakob Handl alias Gallus.
P.S. Speakers of American English will be puzzled, if not misled, by
the spelling "Vargner", and will try to put a retroflex "r" sound into
it, which doesn't represent the way anyone pronounces it. I should
think the spelling "Vahgner" would be unambiguous in both the U.S. and
the U.K. And I wish we could use IPA in this medium.
--
|-------Robert Coren (co...@spdcc.com)-------------------------|
| Aw, well... I guess some of us talks too much, anyway. |
| --Rackety Coon Chile (Walt Kelly) |
|------------------Don't blame Steve for anything I post.------|
Paul Rapoport
ago that the reason Boulez pronounced the z at the end of his name was
because he disliked France and wanted to be associated more with the
progressive Germans of his time.
Could be only a story.
Just an aside on this general topic. Two, in fact. First, I have never
noticed any radio company to be consistent on pronunciations. The CBC has
murdered its share of names, as has the BBC, despite the sometime presence
in the latter of a "pronunciation office" of some sort to which announcers
could turn for advice. The essence is that English, like other languages,
tends to bend foreign terms in its own favor. Nothing could be more
natural, and there are amusing examples of this happening in all
languages. It often happens too that foreigners "nativize" their names
when adopting another country. Countless times I have tried to pronounce
my students' names in accord with what they seem to be in their original
language only to be told no, the name is anglicized now (and pronounced in
a way that makes me wince). Of course this is not an issue with most of
the names being discussed on this list.
The second (??) point is that you can't indicate accurate pronunciations
of another language in English, i.e. by using English approximations. You
can't even indicate English pronunciations well enough by using only the
26 letters we have plus a few other signs. It's all we have on this list,
however, and the solutions offered in the various instances seem to me to
be pretty good!
I once wondered about the Milhaud myself. Then I saw his name on a
Russian LP spelled essentially as Miyo. I concluded that that was a
fairly good approximation, and it is. Mind you, sometimes other
languages "falsify" names. For example, in Russian we find that famous
classical composer Gaydn. Yes, Gaydn. That is because there is no H in
Russian. (There is in Ukrainian, but that's another bag.) So one can't
always trust this kind of "translation." There is another Russian name
that looks original too, namely Timofey. But this is Timothy, because
Russian has no th combination. Schnittke's name in Russian is closer to
Shnitke, but it is, after all, a German name in the first place. The
problems really do go on, and the Russians are not the only peculiar
ones. We all are.
I think the only ideal solution is to ask someone who speaks the foreign
language as a native. But even then I've been misled with some rarer names.
I hope I haven't seemed too dogmatic about all this. Anyhow, I have a
degree in linguistics and read and/or speak a number of languages other
than English. I am also occasionally a translator. That doesn't make me
right all the time, but I hope it has provided a few moments of interest
here.
--
========================== =================================
Dr. Paul Rapoport e-mail: rapo...@mcmaster.ca
Chair, Department of Music tel: 905 529 7070, ext. 2 4217
McMaster University fax: 905 527 6793
James C Liu
He was born in what is now Germany as Georg Friedrich Haendel (ae =
a with an umlaut over it), pronounced Gay-ORG FREE-drich HEN-del, more
or less. However, he had an active international career, with a long
stint in Italy and another, of course, as the court composer of George
of Hanover, later George I of England. While in the U.K., his name was
pronounced (so I'm given to understand) George (like English) Fri-drik
HAN-del (like in pot handle). Either one is legit, since he spent a
significant part of his life in England.
Whether or not Giorgio Federico, in light of his long Italian career,
is legit is open to question.
Tom Wood
> >On a related question, I've been confused lately on the pronunciation of
> >Handel. Is it pronounced Han-del, Hon-del, Hen-del, or something else?
> >When I asked a German native (who I assumed would know the correct
> >pronounciation) she told me that in English, the name is spelled wrong
> >anyway (Haendel). So, which is right?
> He was born in what is now Germany as Georg Friedrich Haendel (ae =
> a with an umlaut over it), pronounced Gay-ORG FREE-drich HEN-del, more
> or less. However, he had an active international career, with a long
> stint in Italy and another, of course, as the court composer of George
> of Hanover, later George I of England. While in the U.K., his name was
> pronounced (so I'm given to understand) George (like English) Fri-drik
> HAN-del (like in pot handle). Either one is legit, since he spent a
> significant part of his life in England.
But didn't many contemporary English sources spell his name "Hendel" --
which suggests that it was pronounced that way?
--
....Thomas Wood..............................
........Springfield, Illinois USA............
............wood@eagle.sangamon.edu..........
HenryFogel
Henry Fogel
Paul Rapoport
HenryFogel <henry...@aol.com> wrote:
>There is a music lover in Chicago who has a cat named Darius Meeow
>
>Henry Fogel
Don't get me started, Henry. My own cat's name is Opus. She is said to
have studied with Dame Myra Hiss, Felix the Mendelssohn, Leopard
Stokowski, and Claw De Pussy -- also to have won the Montreyowl
Competition by a whisker.
When some friends got a kitten a few months back, I suggested the name
Milhaud, which was somewhat appropriate because the family is part
French. One French word for meow is miauler. The obvious connection
suggests that this "joke" is hardly original with me. I don't know
whether Darius Milhaud liked cats, however.
Gerard Henri Rene Milmeister
>In article <3c95ir$j...@doc.armltd.co.uk>,
>Michael Kilpatrick <mkil...@armltd.co.uk> wrote:
>>cel...@minerva.cis.yale.edu (Celia Courtright) writes:
>>
>>
>>>On a related question, I've been confused lately on the pronunciation of Handel. Is it
>>>pronounced Han-del, Hon-del, Hen-del, or something else? When I asked a German
>>>native (who I assumed would know the correct pronounciation) she told me that in
>>>English, the name is spelled wrong anyway (Haendel). So, which is right?
>>
>>>Celia Courtright
>>
>>Handel has always been spelled such, with an umlaut (sic?) over the a,
>>as far as I'm aware, whether printed by a German or a Brit. If they
>>can't print the umlaut they don't change the spelling. (At least I've
>>never seen it). Despite the fact the we usually try to pronounce
>>composers names correctly (e.g. saying "Vargner" not "Wagner") the
>>British don't tend to say "Hendel", probably because Handel became an
>>Englishman, and we have thus Anglicised the name.
Sch"onberg also changed his name to Schoenberg as he settled in
the U.S.
--
Gerard Milmeister | "Some men are born mediocre, some men
<ghmi...@iiic.ethz.ch> | achieve mediocrity, and some men have
Tannenrauchstr. 35 | mediocrity thrust upon them."
CH-8038 Zuerich Switzerland | Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
Andrew Clarke
Georg Friedrich Haendel (or H"andel) anglicised his name to George
Frideric Handel. As anybody who has sung Messiah will know, he was too
damned lazy to write two dots after a crochet or quarter-note, let alone
on top of of his name ...
Andrew C.
Gerard Henri Rene Milmeister
Paul Rapoport <rapo...@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca> wrote:
>languages "falsify" names. For example, in Russian we find that famous
>classical composer Gaydn. Yes, Gaydn. That is because there is no H in
>Russian. (There is in Ukrainian, but that's another bag.) So one can't
Yes, but nowadays the H is usually translated to a russian X which is
pronounced like CH in the german pronounciation of BACH. In russian
BETXOVEN and not BETGOVEN. It may also have to do with where in the
word (e.g. at the beginning) the H occurs.
Lee Cosart
Does anybody know how to pronounce Arvo Part's last name, i.e. in the Estonian
language, what is the phonetic function of an umlaut? Is it PAHRT, PAIRT, or
what?
Ira Smailer
: Of course, after they're dead, does it really matter? Who are you
: going to offend?
Me, for example :)
: -- Karen Mercedes
Ira
James C Liu
>Georg Friedrich Haendel (or H"andel) anglicised his name to George
>Frideric Handel. As anybody who has sung Messiah will know, he was too
>damned lazy to write two dots after a crochet or quarter-note, let alone
>on top of of his name ...
This might be meat for rec.music.early, but did double dots exist
at all at that time? I'd always been under the impression that double-
dotting notation wasn't systematically used until Beethoven's time.
For example, the vocal parts in the Mozart Requiem (Rex tremendae segment)
are single-dotted. Double-dotting in Baroque and Classical music, so I'm
given to understand, is implied, and often assumed, but never explicit.
Please correct me if I'm mistaken, folks.
Eric Poe
: In article <3ca55q$d...@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>,
: Paul Rapoport <rapo...@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca> wrote:
: >languages "falsify" names. For example, in Russian we find that famous
: >classical composer Gaydn. Yes, Gaydn. That is because there is no H in
: >Russian. (There is in Ukrainian, but that's another bag.) So one can't
: Yes, but nowadays the H is usually translated to a russian X which is
: pronounced like CH in the german pronounciation of BACH. In russian
: BETXOVEN and not BETGOVEN. It may also have to do with where in the
: word (e.g. at the beginning) the H occurs.
A friend of mine just finished reading "Guckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain
in Russian. I think your theory about the G being at the beginning of a
word and X being in the middle is correct.
-Eric
Christine Waigl
: He was born in what is now Germany as Georg Friedrich Haendel (ae =
: a with an umlaut over it), pronounced Gay-ORG FREE-drich HEN-del, more
: or less.
: ...
I've got a language-related question: In German, the letters
"a, "o and "u (with the tiny "double primes *over* them)
are called "Umlaut" -- the double primes represent a
small "e", and that's why one writes ae etc. if
the letters "a etc. are not available. But in English,
the double primes seem to be referred to as "umlaut".
So: Does "umlaut" mean something different than "Umlaut"?
Sorry for asking this in rec.music.classical, but the
word pops up regularly here.
--
Chris Waigl
*************************************************************
* *
* physics grad student, cello amateur *
* presently located in Chemnitz/Saxonia/Germany *
* hope to move to Paris soon... *
* email to c.w...@physik.tu-chemnitz.de *
* *
*************************************************************
The von Huene Workshop
> This question came up on rec.music.classical, I'm cross-posting.
> jl...@world.std.com (James C Liu) writes:
> >a...@libserver.canberra.edu.au (Andrew Clarke) writes:
> >>Georg Friedrich Haendel (or H"andel) anglicised his name to George
> >>Frideric Handel. As anybody who has sung Messiah will know, he was too
> >>damned lazy to write two dots after a crochet or quarter-note, let alone
> >>on top of of his name ...
> >
> > This might be meat for rec.music.early, but did double dots exist
> >at all at that time? I'd always been under the impression that double-
> >dotting notation wasn't systematically used until Beethoven's time.
> >For example, the vocal parts in the Mozart Requiem (Rex tremendae segment)
> >are single-dotted. Double-dotting in Baroque and Classical music, so I'm
> >given to understand, is implied, and often assumed, but never explicit.
> >
> > Please correct me if I'm mistaken, folks.
> --
> Francois Velde
> Johns Hopkins University
> ve...@jhu.edu
We should get John Hsu in on this, since he has some pretty definite ideas;
Roland, where are you?
If I remember correctly, John attributes the modern practice of more or
less automatically overdotting to Thurston Dart's writing on performance
practice. Can you elucidate/elaborate?
Nadine S Harris
In article <D0KCw...@world.std.com>, James C Liu <jl...@world.std.com> wrote:
>cel...@minerva.cis.yale.edu (Celia Courtright) writes:
>
>>On a related question, I've been confused lately on the pronunciation of
>>Handel. Is it pronounced Han-del, Hon-del, Hen-del, or something else?
>>When I asked a German native (who I assumed would know the correct
>>pronounciation) she told me that in English, the name is spelled wrong
>>anyway (Haendel). So, which is right?
>
> He was born in what is now Germany as Georg Friedrich Haendel (ae =
>a with an umlaut over it), pronounced Gay-ORG FREE-drich HEN-del, more
>or less. However, he had an active international career, with a long
>stint in Italy and another, of course, as the court composer of George
>of Hanover, later George I of England. While in the U.K., his name was
>pronounced (so I'm given to understand) George (like English) Fri-drik
>HAN-del (like in pot handle). Either one is legit, since he spent a
>significant part of his life in England.
I would welcome more learned correction, but I recall reading some
years ago in Lang's biography of Handel that there is ample authority
for using the spelling and pronunciation "HANDEL" since GFH himself
not only wrote and signed his name that way, but actually seemed
actively to prefer the Anglicisation, possibly for convenience
and courtesy, but also because he considered himself a naturalised
Englishman.
I have mentioned this before, but it never seems to settle anything.
Many German fans, not surprisingly, find it offensive both to misuse
the name and to claim he is not a German composer. A lot of bandwidth
has been spilled on the issue, which is probably the real nub of the
matter.
Nadine
PS: I think Don Joo-un is a reasonable pronunciation too,
James C Liu
>I would welcome more learned correction, but I recall reading some
>years ago in Lang's biography of Handel that there is ample authority
>for using the spelling and pronunciation "HANDEL" since GFH himself
>not only wrote and signed his name that way, but actually seemed
>actively to prefer the Anglicisation, possibly for convenience
>and courtesy, but also because he considered himself a naturalised
>Englishman.
This sounds right to me. HON-del, however, is not correct.
>I have mentioned this before, but it never seems to settle anything.
>Many German fans, not surprisingly, find it offensive both to misuse
>the name and to claim he is not a German composer. A lot of bandwidth
>has been spilled on the issue, which is probably the real nub of the
>matter.
German translations of Messiah sound real weird ...
Chris Brewster
>I would welcome more learned correction, but I recall reading some
>years ago in Lang's biography of Handel that there is ample authority
>for using the spelling and pronunciation "HANDEL" ...
This sounds right to me. HON-del, however, is not correct.
...especially since the German spelling has an umlaut over the "a",
making the first syllable somewhere between "hayn" and "hen". Notice
that "Hendel" is another German name, but I've never seen "Handel" with
no umlaut.
--
Chris Brewster Cray Research, Inc.
Jean-Pierre Trevisani
>In article <3bn9f3$j...@netaxs.com> pre...@netaxs.com (Presser staff) writes:
>>From: pre...@netaxs.com (Presser staff)
>>Subject: Re: Pronouncing composer's names
>>Date: 2 Dec 1994 14:03:15 GMT
>
[snip]
>Books I've read on pronouncing Hungarian say that the first syllable accent in
>this language is a weak one. More important in Hungarian is to pronounce all
>syllables evenly without much stress differentiation. Seeing as this is
>considerably different than English and other Indo-European languages, its
>kind of hard to illustrate in a written medium!
"to pronounce all syllables evenly without much stress differentiation"
Sounds a lot like what you are supposed to do in French... a very
Indo-European language.
Jean-Pierre
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jean-Pierre Trevisani
Project Leader Geac-CLSI Inc.
320 Nevada Street
Richard F. Smith
Frideric Handel. As anybody who has sung Messiah will know, he was too
damned lazy to write two dots after a crochet or quarter-note, let alone
on top of of his name ...
Andrew C.
The guy hardly had time when you consider he wrote Messiah in something like
three weeks! When you consider how much many baroque composers wrote, you
wonder how they had time to write it down. Bach, by comparison to many, was a
layabout.
Peter Hoogenboom
: In article <D0KCw...@world.std.com>, James C Liu <jl...@world.std.com> wrote:
: >
: > He was born in what is now Germany as Georg Friedrich Haendel (ae =
: >a with an umlaut over it), pronounced Gay-ORG FREE-drich HEN-del, more
Georg is stressed on the first syllable, not the second.
: >or less. However, he had an active international career, with a long
: >stint in Italy and another, of course, as the court composer of George
: >of Hanover, later George I of England. While in the U.K., his name was
: >pronounced (so I'm given to understand) George (like English) Fri-drik
: >HAN-del (like in pot handle). Either one is legit, since he spent a
: >significant part of his life in England.
Handel spelled his name "George Frideric Handel" in England. I do not
know whether his middle name was pronounced as two syllables, as you
suggest, or as three, as the spelling suggests.
: actively to prefer the Anglicisation, possibly for convenience
: and courtesy, but also because he considered himself a naturalised
: Englishman.
He considered himself a naturalized Englishman because he was. Whether
his legal name was George Frideric Handel, or whether such distinctions
were significant or had force of law, I can't say.
Peter
--
Peter Hoogenboom phoo...@wlu.edu
Department of Music, DuPont 208 hoogen...@fs.sciences.wlu.edu
Washington and Lee University phoog...@eagle.wesleyan.edu
Lexington, VA 24450 (703) 463-8697
Jean-Pierre Trevisani
>j...@clsib21.clsi.us.geac.com (Jean-Pierre Trevisani) writes:
>
>>In article <3b80t4$p...@newsbf01.news.aol.com> henry...@aol.com (HenryFogel) writes:
>>>In article <CzvqD...@world.std.com>, jl...@world.std.com (James C Liu)
>>>writes:
>>>
>>>>, Pierre Boulez is of Alsatian origin, and pronounces the
>>>>"z.") I've been taught that "Poulenc" is to be pronounced like the
>>>English
>>[snip one]
>>{snip second poster]
>>>He is not Alsatian, but French for many generations.
>
>>Alsatians _are_ French. Always have, always will.
>
> Correct me if my ignorance leads me astray (more than likely in this case),
>but I thought that (1) the Alsace region has historically been an area of
>contention between the Germans and the French; (2) there are strong German
>ethnic roots mingled in with French there; (3) regional pronunciation of
>French names may not be the same, depending on ethnic origins, etc.
>How far off base is this?
>--
>/James C.S. Liu, MD "There is always an easy answer to
First of all my reply did not address pronounciations but the statement
about Alsatians which to me read just like:
"He is not from Kansas, but American for many generations"
To which I said: huh?
(1) Alsatians are of germanic origin as indeed were the Franks.
Alsace has been part of the French state for quite some time. Certainly
before there even existed such a thing as a German state. During the
period between the Franco-Prussian war (1873) and WWI, Alsace was part of
the German Reich. There are countless books and accounts from the period
that describe how Germans were seen as invaders. The Alsacians would speak
among themselves in Alsacian (very close to German) but as soon as a German
would join them, they would switch to French. Students abandoned classes at
the University taught in German, etc, etc. There might be an Alsatian
independentist movement. I have never heard of it or of any move by
Alsatians to leave. Every Alsatian I have ever met spoke of Germans as
"them" and of French as "we". That is not to say that there might be some
Alsatians which dream of a Greater Germany encompassing all the German
peoples, but I'd say they're more likely to get Eastern Prussia back from
Poland than to sever Alsace from France.
(2) France is a nation not a race. Pompidou (former president) was greek,
Aznavour was Armenian, Yves Montand was Italian and so is Michel Platini,
etc. If you consider Gauls were celts, who were invaded by Romans, who were
invaded by Franks (aka germans) and then remember that those are only the
big invasions (Arabs, Normands, English, etc) you will agree that to speak
of a French race is too much.
(3) Yes, pronounciation does vary depending on regional origins.
To summarize:
Alsatians pronounce certain names differently. YES
Alsatians are not French. NO
Jean-Pierre (Catalan, Basque and Italian from Normandie and proud to be French)
Margaret Mikulska
>>
>> > This might be meat for rec.music.early, but did double dots exist
>> >at all at that time? I'd always been under the impression that double-
>> >dotting notation wasn't systematically used until Beethoven's time.
>> >For example, the vocal parts in the Mozart Requiem (Rex tremendae segment)
>> >are single-dotted. Double-dotting in Baroque and Classical music, so I'm
>> >given to understand, is implied, and often assumed, but never explicit.
They are sometimes explicit in Mozart's scores, for instance in the
Andante of the Symphony in A KV 201 and in slow introductions to such
symphonies as K. 203, 250, 320, 425, 504, 543, and 444 (the slow
introduction to a symphony by Michael Haydn). However, it's true that
the use of double-dotting notation was not systematical.
-Margaret
Andrew Clarke
(a) Given Johann Sebastian's 20 children, "layabout" takes on a whole new
meaning ...
(b) I believe that the teleprinter was named after Telemann, although
the latter's rate of delivery was probably slightly faster.
(c) Thomas Pynchon's enormous novel "V" actually refers to Vivaldi, who
would probably have turned the whole book into his 95th opera given a
day or two to think about it... Hitler's V-Waffen (V1 & V2) were based
on the same concept: imagine the weight of the violin concerti
scores alone being dropped on one from a great height.
(d) Scarlet O'Hara was originally named Scarlatti O'Hara: appropriate for a
fast lady. She changed her name after South Carolina seceded, being
under the misapprehension that Alessandro and Domenico were two
damned Yankees from the Lower East Side.
Andrew J. Clarke
Minogue Professor of Musicology and Karl Haas to the Destitute,
University of Junee
Fred Goldrich
Richard R Uren~a <ur...@titan.ucs.umass.edu> wrote:
...
Richard's posting brings up a related question -- the spelling
of names (and other words, I guess) in the absence of some of the needed
characters.
I notice that he spells his name Uren~a, with the tilde follow-
ing the n, corresponding to the way I would spell, e.g., Bo"hm. How-
ever, I notice that most German speakers are more likely to write
"Boehm"; and many others write B"ohm. Are there reasons to prefer one
convention over the others? Is there anything approaching a standard,
or is it still up for grabs?
-- Fred Goldrich
--
Fred Goldrich
gold...@panix.com
Francois Velde
>
> I notice that he spells his name Uren~a, with the tilde follow-
>ing the n, corresponding to the way I would spell, e.g., Bo"hm. How-
>ever, I notice that most German speakers are more likely to write
>"Boehm"; and many others write B"ohm. Are there reasons to prefer one
>convention over the others? Is there anything approaching a standard,
>or is it still up for grabs?
Placing the mark after the letter it modifies makes more sense to me.
Suppose you want to write a word which begins with a modified letter,
such as a"hnlich or O"l. If you place the mark before the vowel,
you run the risk of confusion with a quotation mark. The same happens
in French, because of the use of the apostrophe to represent elision.
If you placed the diacritical mark before, you'd run into problems
like: l''ecrivain n''etait qu'`a demi mort, and you have trouble
distinguishing d'edit and d''edit.
Paul Rapoport
three vowels) is equivalent to the letter e following a vowel, as was
pointed out: Bo"hm (the two dots over the o) and Boehm. However, some
families get rather upset if you misspell their name by using one of these
spellings when you should use the other.
It is not correct, however, to transfer this custom to other languages.
For example, Swedish has what look like Umlaut signs, and over two of the
same letters. But it would be wrong these days to spell the name of the
Swedish composer Goestra Nystroem in that manner. Libraries which catalog
his name in such a way don't impress me. And then there's Hungarian, in
which the "solution" of replacing the two dots by an e is utterly
unworkable. For one thing, there are two sizes of two dots! In Dutch the
two dots over a y represent older (usually) spellings of ij, for example
Matthys or Matthy"s for Matthijs.
Lastly, in various formal and older spellings in English, you may
encounter the two dots, but only over an e. In this case, the sign is not
an Umlaut but a diaeresis. Now that word is a bother too, because the a
and e should form one digraph!
How to alphabetize with all these goings-on, only a few of which I've
tried to explain, is something even the Library of Congress can't solve:
it's basically unsolvable.
Richard R Uren~a
come up before.
How does one pronounce Smetana's first name?
I heard someone say it's BEDR-shik but I'm not sure. Does
anyone know?
Rich
Martin Schoon AR/RH
(Hanspeter Schmid) writes:
|>
|> This was never a problem until computers were introduced, since then
|> one never knows whether a name is in fact written without an umlaut
|> or whether it's only an ASCII problem.
|>
I know,
============================================================================
Martin Scho"o"n <era...@eras70.ericsson.se>
"Problems worthy of attack
prove their worth by hitting back"
Piet Hein
============================================================================
PS. There are many examples of ascii unfriendly names in Sweden. What about
O"ckero", Ro"ro", Ho"no", Ha"lso", Tjo"rn, Bjo"rko", So"o" (islands along
the west-coast, o" is island in swedish) or Va"xjo" (small town) or ....
Stan Szpakowicz
>So then, Dvorak (Dvor^a'k) would be pronounced DVO-zhak instead of
>DVOR-zhak?
Actually, Dvor`'a'k, if you want "a reasonable facsimile". That's a "little
hook" up there after 'r', an inverted caret. The pronounciation is somewhat
like DVO-rzhak with a very very faint 'r'. Kind of tough on non-Slavic
tongues (;^).
--
Dr. Stan Szpakowicz :: Univ. of Ottawa :: Dept. of Computer Science
sz...@csi.uottawa.ca :: also at sz...@dal.carleton.ca, Carleton Univ.
R. Iain Farquhar
>From: ur...@twain.ucs.umass.edu (Richard R Uren~a)
>Subject: Re: Pronouncing composer's names
How about BED-zhi[ch] with the ch being sounded ala German.
The simple rule to remember in Czech is that the first syllable is always
accented, the vowels with accents aren't accents at all but lengthen the sound
of the vowel like Hungarian, and the r,s,c, with the hats on are
pronounced 'zh','sh', and 'ch' as in English.
I heard a debate on how to pronounce Jana`c^ek's name on PBS once, with one
announcer going with the traditional English 'JAN-uh-check' pronunciation, and
the other saying that since there was an accent on the second syllable you
should say 'Ju-NAH-check'. Of course, both were wrong, it should be
JA-naaah-check, with the second syllable being held a lttle longer.
There other more complicate rules I'm sure, but that's a good
start!
Iain
>Rich
Frank Steyvers
>How to alphabetize with all these goings-on, only a few of which I've
>tried to explain, is something even the Library of Congress can't solve:
>it's basically unsolvable.
It is getting away from music, I guess, but still...
Yes, it can be solved. Society should push back against the technology
push that caused the problem. 7-bit ASCII is the problem. Just one bit
more and a full international character set is available. If everyone
whose name has those weird characters (:-)) would send back their mail to
where it came from with the remark " name not correctly spelled"
I think within one or two years the problem would have been solved.
I even think that the uncorrect spelling will hold in legal problems
(Imagine: that is not my speeding fine, because my name is spelled ...")
We should stop letting technology push or pull us into a Procustus' bed!
Frank Steyvers
Hanspeter Schmid
And the Swedish Malmo" ?-) (I mean Malm"o)
The example Fred mentioned is particularly bad, since Boehm (the one
with the flutes) is in fact written WITHOUT an umlaut in German.
Of course there exist people called 'Bo"hm', but it's not the same name.
The Romans wrote 'vitae' when they (probably) meant the vowel which
corresponds to the German umlaut ' a" '. But not every family has changed
their names since ' ae ' was shortened to ' a" '.
This was never a problem until computers were introduced, since then
one never knows whether a name is in fact written without an umlaut
or whether it's only an ASCII problem.
Merry Christmas.
--
Hanspeter Schmid
-===-=-====-=-=====-=========-==-======-=====-===-=====-========-=========-
orienteering runner ... pan flutist (pro :-)) ... trombonist (beginner)
music lover ... and generally having a good time
-===-=-====-=-=====-=========-==-======-=====-===-=====-========-=========-
Try my new WWW-homepage! http://www.isi.ee.ethz.ch/~schmid
(and tell me how you like it)
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Signal and Information Processing Laboratory
Zurich, Switzerland
Fred Goldrich
Hanspeter Schmid <sch...@isi.ee.ethz.ch> wrote:
>Francois Velde (ve...@riffle.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
>: Placing the mark after the letter it modifies makes more sense to me...
>
>This was never a problem until computers were introduced, since then
>one never knows whether a name is in fact written without an umlaut
>or whether it's only an ASCII problem.
Surely it had been a problem -- though admittedly on a smaller
scale -- whenever anyone attempted to write German on many typewriters.
--
Fred Goldrich
gold...@panix.com
Jim Murphy
: front would generate confusion in many languages. So I prefer to
: place them following the letter being modified. It is true that
: some people do the opposite -perhaps as a carryover from writing
: on a (Spanish) typewriter: when typing accented (or umlauted)
: vowels, one types the ' or the " first (the carriage doesn't move),
: followed by the vowel. But when carrying this custom over to the
: ASCII character sets, the results are not pretty, and can sometimes
: be quite confusing.
: I understand that writing Boehm instead of Bo"m is accepted practice
: in German, as is using 'ss' instead of the "Beta" sign. But this
: does not apply in other languages, so my preference is to use
: the diacriticals -or reasonable facsimiles thereof- after the
: letters.
I approve of approximating diacriticals with punctuation marks, but I
don't know what to do about the little circles over the first & last a's in
"Hakan Hagegard" or the u in "Martinu," or the upsidedown caret over the
r in "Dvorak." Any suggestions?
--
-Jim
jmu...@u.washington.edu
Richard R Uren~a
>
>The simple rule to remember in Czech is that the first syllable is always
>accented, the vowels with accents aren't accents at all but lengthen the sound
>of the vowel like Hungarian, and the r,s,c, with the hats on are
>pronounced 'zh','sh', and 'ch' as in English.
So then, Dvorak (Dvor^a'k) would be pronounced DVO-zhak instead of
DVOR-zhak?
Rich
Richard R Uren~a
> I notice that he spells his name Uren~a, with the tilde follow-
>ing the n, corresponding to the way I would spell, e.g., Bo"hm. How-
>ever, I notice that most German speakers are more likely to write
>"Boehm"; and many others write B"ohm. Are there reasons to prefer one
>convention over the others? Is there anything approaching a standard,
>or is it still up for grabs?
As Franc,ois ( :-) ) Velde pointed out, putting the diacriticals in
front would generate confusion in many languages. So I prefer to
place them following the letter being modified. It is true that
some people do the opposite -perhaps as a carryover from writing
on a (Spanish) typewriter: when typing accented (or umlauted)
vowels, one types the ' or the " first (the carriage doesn't move),
followed by the vowel. But when carrying this custom over to the
ASCII character sets, the results are not pretty, and can sometimes
be quite confusing.
I understand that writing Boehm instead of Bo"m is accepted practice
in German, as is using 'ss' instead of the "Beta" sign. But this
does not apply in other languages, so my preference is to use
the diacriticals -or reasonable facsimiles thereof- after the
letters.
Rich
David Baggett
Frank Steyvers <stey...@trc.rug.nl> wrote:
>Just one bit more and a full international character set is available.
There are plenty of Asians who might disagree! However, you're right in
principle: 16-bit unicode seems sufficient. Still, the problem of
alphabetizing all these international names (this is what Paul was talking
about w.r.t. the Library of Congress) is still intractable. There are many
ways to "alphabetize" the Han characters used in Chinese, Japanese, and
other languages, and the methods vary from language to language.
Since I don't think we want to require library users to know the indexing
schemes for all the world's languages, it's probably best that we stick to
romanization of foreign words, which leaves us with all the problems Paul
mentioned.
Dave Baggett
__
d...@ai.mit.edu MIT AI Lab "Verbing weirds language" -- Calvin
ADVENTIONS: Kuul text adventures! Email for a catalog of releases.
Thomas Petersen
The *is* a standard for German names: Boehm is the correct form. When
you can't write an umlaut over the wovel, you should always place an e
after the wovel. This is because the umlauted o is actually just a
shorter form of oe. Likewise you are supposed to write 'Furtwaengler',
'Die Schoene Muellerin', 'Haendel' and 'Goetterdaemmerung'. The
standards for the Scandinavian languages are similar.
Don't know what you are supposed to do with French characters though.
Thomas
(Who is greatly annoyed that his terminal program is incapable of
accepting non-US character-sets. Death 7-bit ASCII. Long live Unicode!)
Markus Lang
» The
» standards for the Scandinavian languages are similar.
May I beg your pardon! Förlåt mej!
As far as I know, you can't replace an a-umlaut with ae
in Swedish, Finnish or Estonian!
For example, my family name is Lång (you should have an
8-bit character set in order to see "the a with the big
dot"), and I do not accept the spelling "Laang". Similarily,
you can't spell "Jaervi" or "Paert", but Järvi (or Jarvi)
and Pärt (or Part). The German norm can be applied ONLY to
German.
BTW, I can type Ureńa, too. If you can't see it correctly,
it's not my fault. ISO-Latin 1 is an international standard.
----------------------
ml...@katk.helsinki.fi
Ira Smailer
: In article <3dc68m...@twain.ucs.umass.edu> ur...@twain.ucs.umass.edu (Richard R Uren~a) writes:
: >From: ur...@twain.ucs.umass.edu (Richard R Uren~a)
: >Subject: Re: Pronouncing composer's names
: >Date: 22 Dec 1994 10:33:42 -0500
: >I'm coming late to this thread, so my apologies if this has
: >come up before.
: >How does one pronounce Smetana's first name?
: >I heard someone say it's BEDR-shik but I'm not sure. Does
: >anyone know?
: How about BED-zhi[ch] with the ch being sounded ala German.
Close.
: The simple rule to remember in Czech is that the first syllable is always
:accented, the vowels with accents aren't accents at all but lengthen the sound: of the vowel like Hungarian, and the r,s,c, with the hats on are
: pronounced 'zh','sh', and 'ch' as in English.
Ahh, the infamous 'r^' has got somebody stumped yet again!
Your transcriptions s^-->sh and c^-->ch are correct, but r^ is totally
unlike zh. Besides, zh already appears in the form of z^. I guess
r^ might sound like sh or zh to you, or you might even want to stick
to the r, but none of them are particularly close. Your best bet
might well be a visit to the local Slavic department and ask somebody
to pronounce it for you.
: I heard a debate on how to pronounce Jana`c^ek's name on PBS once, with one
: announcer going with the traditional English 'JAN-uh-check' pronunciation, and
: the other saying that since there was an accent on the second syllable you
: should say 'Ju-NAH-check'. Of course, both were wrong, it should be
: JA-naaah-check, with the second syllable being held a lttle longer.
Yes, but remember the JA is pronounced like YA (_not like in 'Jason').
Ira
Ira Smailer
Neither. The syllable division is dvo-r^a'k, so your first version
is a bit closer. Something like DVO-r^aaaak, insert your favorite
pronunciation of the r^.
Ira
: Rich
R. Iain Farquhar
>From: sma...@twain.ucs.umass.edu (Ira Smailer)
>Subject: Re: Pronouncing composer's names
>R. Iain Farquhar (far...@primenet.com) wrote:
>: In article <3dc68m...@twain.ucs.umass.edu> ur...@twain.ucs.umass.edu
>(Richard R Uren~a) writes:
>: >From: ur...@twain.ucs.umass.edu (Richard R Uren~a)
>: >Subject: Re: Pronouncing composer's names
>: >Date: 22 Dec 1994 10:33:42 -0500
>: >I'm coming late to this thread, so my apologies if this has
>: >come up before.
>: >How does one pronounce Smetana's first name?
>: >I heard someone say it's BEDR-shik but I'm not sure. Does
>: >anyone know?
>: How about BED-zhi[ch] with the ch being sounded ala German.
>Close.
>: The simple rule to remember in Czech is that the first syllable is always
>:accented, the vowels with accents aren't accents at all but lengthen the sound:
>of the vowel like Hungarian, and the r,s,c, with the hats on are
>: pronounced 'zh','sh', and 'ch' as in English.
>Ahh, the infamous 'r^' has got somebody stumped yet again!
>Your transcriptions s^-->sh and c^-->ch are correct, but r^ is totally
>unlike zh. Besides, zh already appears in the form of z^. I guess
>r^ might sound like sh or zh to you, or you might even want to stick
>to the r, but none of them are particularly close. Your best bet
>might well be a visit to the local Slavic department and ask somebody
>to pronounce it for you.
Someone in a previous post gave a closer example than mine. One of the
difficulties of trying to explain pronunciation via transliteration is the
almost impossibility of explaining sounds that don't exist in English at all.
Try explaining how to pronounce the Welsh 'll' to someone!
>: I heard a debate on how to pronounce Jana`c^ek's name on PBS once, with one
>: announcer going with the traditional English 'JAN-uh-check' pronunciation, and
>: the other saying that since there was an accent on the second syllable you
>: should say 'Ju-NAH-check'. Of course, both were wrong, it should be
>: JA-naaah-check, with the second syllable being held a lttle longer.
>Yes, but remember the JA is pronounced like YA (_not like in 'Jason').
I'm so used to German that I forgot to transliterate the J to a Y. Thanks for
pointing this out!! (:-)
>Ira
Iain
Ira Smailer
: Fred Goldrich (gold...@panix.com) wrote:
: > In article <3dc68m...@twain.ucs.umass.edu>,
: > Richard R Uren~a <ur...@titan.ucs.umass.edu> wrote:
: > ...
: > Richard's posting brings up a related question -- the spelling
: > of names (and other words, I guess) in the absence of some of the needed
: > characters.
: > I notice that he spells his name Uren~a, with the tilde follow-
: > ing the n, corresponding to the way I would spell, e.g., Bo"hm. How-
: > ever, I notice that most German speakers are more likely to write
: > "Boehm"; and many others write B"ohm. Are there reasons to prefer one
: > convention over the others? Is there anything approaching a standard,
: > or is it still up for grabs?
: There *is* a standard for German names: Boehm is the correct form. When
: you can't write an umlaut over the wovel, you should always place an e
: after the wovel. This is because the umlauted o is actually just a
: shorter form of oe. Likewise you are supposed to write 'Furtwaengler',
: 'Die Schoene Muellerin', 'Haendel' and 'Goetterdaemmerung'. The
: standards for the Scandinavian languages are similar.
You are right about the existence of this standard. A German speaker
can deduce the correct pronunciation, so no harm is done. However,
a <...>-speaker might then apply his <...> pronunciation, so I rather
prefer using scho"n etc. Not that people will pronounce it correctly
then, but at least I have alerted them that a typically German sound
is lurking in that word.
Ira
Ira Smailer
^^^^^^^
: r in "Dvorak." Any suggestions?
^^^^^^
Tough. You can try Martinu' or Dvor^a'k, if you like. Czech doesn't have
a fixed rule how to transcribe these sounds if your character set
doesn't contain them, so mostly they are just left out. Not surprisingly,
(some) Czech emigrees actually speak pseudo-Czech just like that, without
any of those carets or accents :)
Ira
Richard R Uren~a
(Just kidding)
Thanks for all the helpful suggestions. Happy holidays!
Rich
richard hihn
East European names seem to be the more favored ones to discuss when
it comes to pronunciation. It seems to me that most people pronounce
Beethoven's name *BAY-to-ven*. I have heard more than one non-English
speaking person pronounce it *Bay-TOF-en*.
Would a knowledgeable person please tell me if these non-English
speaking persons are correct?
Is it more "politically correct" to be able to pronounce correctly
some composer's names than others? I'm sure this may be an issue with
other well-known composers:Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Mozart,
Debussy, for example. No one seems to bat an eye when it comes to
pronouncing these names.
Dick
Paul Rapoport
stress the second syllable. Since the division is Beet - hoven
and both the ee and o are long vowels in what is probably the low
Germanic source of this name, it is possible that some
people mishear the longer second vowel as a stress sign. And then again,
some differences in stress in Dutch and various low German dialects are less
than some in English...
Sorry if that doesn't help much! Others may know more.