how to pronounce...

[Kullervo]

leosh Yanachek

M yeah chuh swav vineberg

Shanksh choo very musch.

[greg]

chuh

i thought the y is pronounced more like the i in "igloo" instead of "uh"...

[RebLem]

MOLL er.

SAN sawn, except that it isn't spoken with an emphasis on the SAN; its more like a sing song. with the SAN in a high tone, and the sawn a tone or two lower.

Usually, people want to know how to pronounce Dvorak, too, so her goes:

duh VOR jacques.

[Holden]

Rappy, if Mahler had been a painter, how would you pronounce Mahler der Maler?

And if Sviatoslav Richter had been a poet you could have had Richter die Dichter. Richter was, however, a painter

[btpaul674]

Can someone help me how to be clear with the "Joly" in 'Joly Braga Santos'?

[Scriptavolant]

And if Sviatoslav Richter had been a poet you could have had Richter die Dichter. Richter was, however, a painter

And what if he had been a judge AND a poet?

[Mahlered]

And if Sviatoslav Richter had been a poet you could have had Richter die Dichter.

Charles Richter, as in the seismologist who came up with the scale, wrote poems too. So we are not without a Richter der Dichter!

[Greta]

When I was first collecting I had a big problem with not composer names, but conductors! Still do often.

Tricky ones: papa and son Kleiber are pronounced Kligh-ber, the conductors Järvi are Yair-vee (as in "hair"). And Vänska is Ven-skuh.

Another, Marek Jankowski is Yan-kov-ski.

Christoph von Dohnányi is another tough one. I have heard it in this way, which seems right, as, Doh-yan-ni (with a long O). Except more actually like "Doak" with a really soft "k" and put a small bit of an "n" sound before the "yanni".

Some good ones I used to mess up:

Riccardo Chailly: Shy-ee
Yoel Levi: Lev-ee (not like Levi's jeans, LOL, yes, I was guilty)
Charles Dutoit: Doo-twa

Question: is Pierre Boulez, acceptable as either: Boo-lez or Boo-lay?

[Wendell_E]

Question: is Pierre Boulez, acceptable as either: Boo-lez or Boo-lay?

No.  The 'z' isn't silent.

[Kullervo]

And Vänska is Ven-skuh.

I thought the Finnish 'Ä' was a sound similar to the 'A' in "cat".

[greg]

Question: is Pierre Boulez, acceptable as either: Boo-lez or Boo-lay?

as i posted in the lyrics thread, i thought it was "Boo-lay" until I heard some guy say "Boulez" in the recording of the Berio Sinfonia.

[Larry Rinkel]

And if Sviatoslav Richter had been a poet you could have had Richter die Dichter. Richter was, however, a painter

Richter der Dichter.

[Larry Rinkel]

No.  The 'z' isn't silent.

Likewise: Berlioz. Interestingly, both composers were born in the same general region of southeast France.

[Manon]

If anyone wants to know about Turkish words (Turkish singers, composers, musicians, operas etc.), you can ask me 

[Drasko]

Vänskä

http://www.sci.fi/~kajun/finns/Samples/vanska.wav



The whole list of Finnish surnames:

http://www.sci.fi/~kajun/finns/alllast.htm#8

[Greta]

Thanks for that page! The Finnish names can be really confusing.

Here is the page with musicians:

http://www.sci.fi/~kajun/finns/6.htm

Interesting, the clip there pronounces Saraste exactly as I did at first, Sah-RAH-stay, but I had thought that was wrong because accents are usually on the first syllable so I had changed to SAH-rahs-tuh.

And here is a clip from Minnesota Orchestra of how to pronounce Vänska:

http://mnorch.com/windowsmedia_high/3.osmo.wmv

[quintett op.57]

No.  The 'z' isn't silent.

it should be silent but even the french pronounce it mistakely.

[Norseman]

Haydn = Hi - den (stress on Hi)

That was the wisdom of a native German ;-)

So do you guys actually say 'dEn'? I, and most of my fellow norwegians, pronounce it the way it's written, with no real vowel between d and n, more of a nasal sound, I guess.. Is that wrong?

[rappy]

No, it's correct. Sorry, that was a bit confusing, I didn't know how to write that nasal sound in English.

[Maciek]

How do you pronounce (...) Mieczysław

M yeah chuh swav

i thought the y is pronounced more like the i in "igloo" instead of "uh"...

Both are rough approximations of the Polish y. (OTOH, Polish does not have the "uh" sound nor exactly the "i" from "igloo".) The i (as in it, pit, knit, sick etc. but especially: chip, chit and chisel) is closer to the ideal, at least to my ear. You can improve it by smiling wide when you say it.

So I'd go for (it's still rough):
m yeah CHISS suave

While I'm at it, may I mention the fact that Górecki is pronounced: goor-ETZ-key? (Mikołaj is the sequence of words: me, co, why).

Quintett, could you finally put my mind at rest about this:
Is Swann pronounced Swan or Svan?? (I always assumed the former?)