Pronounciation Of Composers' Names, Does it matter? Options

[elephant]

The title of this thread was pronouncing composers names "properly", not the names of people you may be speaking to or who may be speaking to you. My point about "snobbery" related to that.

On the seemingly more vexed question of having people pronounce one's own name "correctly", personally I frankly don't care one way or the other. I've spent some of my formative and all of my adult years outside of the UK (speaking French) but have an English name. No French person I have met, including Mrs Elephant, has ever pronounced it quite the way I and other English speakers do, and I don't mind one bit.

Of course it's important that things be recognisable (viz. Anacrusis having fun wrestling with Polish consonantal clusters) but otherwise I don't see why it's important to folk other than linguists. I don't really understand why I should require others to "make an effort". I live in a country where a particular set of letters gives rise to a particular pronunciation (with a good few variants obviously when the combination is an unfamiliar one). And yes, if I happened to be called John and went to Germany and became "Yohn" I wouldn't mind one bit.

People who use my name are usually attempting to communicate with me and I can think of nothing more off-putting for some poor French person to be told "it's pronounced ‘Elefant’ (subtext, you French clot). They're not going to get it "right", they're just going to be embarrassed about trying again. Great way to break the ice!!

[Dugazon]

.

[Roseau]

my maiden name is not one that German speakers find all that easy to say based on the letters given, and I have on a number of occasions found I didn't respond to it being called because my brain was wired to pick up the right way to say it, but not the wrong one: on one occasion I even got told how I should be pronouncing it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif).

French speakers don't pronounce the last letter of my surname because it doesn't have an "e" after it. The children in my daughter's class were once given letters to take home with the parents' names on them. The teacher read out the names on the enveloppes and the children had to put up their hand to claim the letter. My daughter failed to recognise my name pronounced French style, earning her a scathing comment from the teacher about not even knowing her own mother's name.

Going back to composers' names. Almost all the composers are pronounced slightly differently in French. All the music teachers order music from a shop in Paris but it doesn't have a website and you have to phone up and say what you want. Before I discovered online shops, I tried to use this one but I never seemed able to pronounce the composer's name in a way they could understand and always ended up having to spell it.

[andante_in_c]

Here's another question: how do you pronounce Shostakovich?
Most people say sho-sta-co-vitch.
I have heard the occasional person refer to him as sho-sta-kov-itch. It sounds less Anglicised and more authentic - but is it right?

My former piano teacher used to use the latter pronunciation, until he asked a Russian student of his who said it the more usual way. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[elephant]

<<French speakers don't pronounce the last letter of my surname because it doesn't have an "e" after it. The children in my daughter's class were once given letters to take home with the parents' names on them. The teacher read out the names on the enveloppes and the children had to put up their hand to claim the letter. My daughter failed to recognise my name pronounced French style, earning her a scathing comment from the teacher about not even knowing her own mother's name.>>

I guess we've all had similar experiences. I once missed my turn for a medical examination when names were called out in the waiting room and have had to listen hard when waiting for administrative appointments. I've also experienced it when going forward to pick up sports trophies after a competition. If I sense that the person handing out the awards is having any difficulty or hesitating I just go forward and announce my name myself. It can be irritating of course, but one just has to bear in mind that it's not done out of badness (or only very rarely in my experience) and that the person making the effort has also been put in a potentially embarrassing situation.

"Scathing comment", unfortunately, doesn't surprise me from the French school teaching establishment... but I don't want to get started on that....

[elephant]

Re my comment on snobbery... it was an add-on and I can now see it wasn't at all clear.

I didn't mean that pronouncing names "correctly" (i.e. as in the original language) was in any way snobbish. What I have seen, and frankly dislike intensely, is knowledge of a language being used as a put down.

Now, I'm (sincerely) 100% convinced that none of the people contributing here come into that category and did not mean to imply that, but I have seen instances of people being made to feel embarrassed by: "actually it's pronounced...." in front of others when they may, for example, have made "Verdi" rhyme with "nerdy", etc. and when the person doing the correcting would choke on a Chinese, Indonesian, Russian or French name. I'm sure I'm not alone in disliking this kind of thing. (And once again, I am not implying that any of the contributors here would do such a thing, but it does exist). Hope that's clearer.

Back to work, so bye for now

E

[Aquarelle]

Try teaching in a laguage other than your native tongue. I have always tried to pronouce composers' names correctly in their anglicised verson as I learnt when at school - which at least seems comprehensible. But it isn't consistent - we pronouced "Fauré "correctly with the pronounced "é" as in French and "Debussy"
with a nasal "u".

Now I battle with the French pronunciation - to say nothing of the explaining the pronunciation of Italian terms to my French pupils.

I did once spend a long time wondering why my Larousse Dictionary of Music had no entry for a composer as important as "Shostakovitch"

[elephant]

Hi Aquarelle,

is "laguage" what we teach when we have a bab cobe and a stubbed ub noze ?

Sorry, I know it's only a typo, but couldn't resist it.

[Aquarelle]

Hi Aquarelle,

is "laguage" what we teach when we have a bab cobe and a stubbed ub noze ?

Sorry, I know it's only a typo, but couldn't resist it.

Hi elephant

I hope you are not forecasting here!! My partner does have a stinking cold and I've been trying mind over matter all week in an effort not to catch it. If I do there will be a lot of "bab laguage" in the air!

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[elephant]

Hi Aquarelle,

is "laguage" what we teach when we have a bab cobe and a stubbed ub noze ?

Sorry, I know it's only a typo, but couldn't resist it.

Hi elephant

I hope you are not forecasting here!! My partner does have a stinking cold and I've been trying mind over matter all week in an effort not to catch it. If I do there will be a lot of "bab laguage" in the air!

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Help may be at hand: Vicks First Defence is now available in France (or so I'm told). I've found it pretty effective in avoiding infection when Mrs E has been barking and sneezing for a week or so (+ all of the washing hands, etc.). Its called "Première Défense" (as you might expect)...

[YetAnotherPianist]

Help may be at hand: Vicks First Defence is now available in France (or so I'm told). ...Its called "Première Défense" (as you might expect)...

Unlike the film Speed, which wasn't called 'La Vitesse', oh no....

(...though First Defence would be a bit late for me now too... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif).)

[fipple]

A couple of points if I may...

As I speak German I can pronounce Bach properly but seldom do for fear of giving the impression that I am ignorant of the "proper" (English ) way of pronouncing it or being regarded as a clever ####.

Why did no one mention Dvor (v) ak ? I was congratulated on my ability to pronounce it properly when I spoke to some Czechs. I felt it only fair to tell them that we have a similar sound in Irish, similar to the r(v) that is. Also the DV is pronounced that way not as a V, which is what I commonly hear.

Now would anyone like to have a go at Gigli and van Gogh ?