Help with OCS pronunciation

[Olga Meerson]

All is pronounced the Russian way today: all the e's are front and palatalizing the previous consonant when the latter is paired (the way a iat' used to be), and all the unpaired consonants (e.g. ts in Bogoroditse) are not palatalized, consequently making the following e sound much more back (not like any iat' of any sort). On the other hand, the vowels are either not reduced or less reduced than in modern Russian. The word Bobroditse (-e bec. of the vocative), therefore, contains three full-fledged o's.

Whatever can be said about the adulteration of OCS in today's Church language pronunciation, Rakhmaninov's phonetics adheres to that, "adulterated" version. very much russified phonetically. (His texts are neither his nor written for him especially, anyway).  As a Russian Church choir director with nearly 30 years of experience, I can testify that that is the practice in almost all Russian churches today (regional dialects and old-believers are somewhat exceptional). For example, very few readers or choir singers use fricative g, unless in Ukraine or in regional dialects. But that is conditioned by their respective vernacular practices, not by any adherence to something genuine in the ChSl itself. The vowels, however, are another matter, esp. the unstressed o: although somewhat reduced, much less so than in Russian as spoken today.
o.m.

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