Rachmaninov: Ave Maria

[Rebecca Jane Stanton]

Yes, Church Slavic is sung "as written," i.e. with each Cyrillic letter 
consistently representing the same phoneme, but the transliterations can 
vary wildly!  I've seen monstrosities such as "byeahssmyeahrtnooee" for 
"bessmertnyi," for example.  So it really helps to have the text in 
modern Cyrillic, if it isn't already printed on the score (and in older 
Western editions, it isn't always).

Genevra Gerhart asked, very practically, if there were recordings 
available online with the proper pronunciation.  All I've been able to 
find is this, which has excellent MP3 files of several prayers and 
troparia, but not the one addressed to the Virgin, unfortunately!:
http://www.orthodoxepubsoc.org/prayers.htm

Best,
RJS

Bob Johnson wrote:

> Also, and correct me if I'm wrong people, the fortunate thing about 
> singing
> this is that you can use a simple pronunciation key...maybe from 
> wikipedia?
> In singing like this, I'm fairly certain that it is pronounced as it is
> written, not as it is spoken.
>
> Cheers,
> Robert Johnson
>
>
> On 1/16/07, Mogens Jensen <Mogens.Jensen at skolekom.dk> wrote:
>
>>
>> Dear Seelangers
>> A local choir will like to perform Rachmaninov: "Ave Maria".
>> In english the first words in transscription look as follows:
>>
>> Bôgôroditse Deyvo, raduissya Blagôdatnaya Mariye
>>
>> Can anyone help me with the russian text ?
>> (I have been asked to teach a proper pronunciation...)
>> Best regards, Mogens Jensen, Denmark
>>

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