Dialects of poetry (Old Norse, Middle English, Shakespearean, etc.)

[David Wake]

>If an authentic period performance of Messiah uses early 17th c.
>nstruments, a chorus no more than 16, and counter-tenors, then why
>not also use early 17th c. Dublin pronunciation?

Getting a bit OT here, but one could answer that Handel (who was not
himself a native English speaker) presumably did not write Messiah
with a contemporary Irish accent in mind.

David



On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 7:19 AM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Dialects of poetry (Old Norse, Middle English, Shakespearean,
>              etc.)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I've raised similar questions in choral diction discussions.  Period
> performance goes to great lengths to emulate not only the kinds of
> instruments and styles of playing used but also the temperaments, the
> ensemble sizes, and other details--except for pronunciation.  If an
> authentic period performance of Messiah uses early 17th c.
> instruments, a chorus no more than 16, and counter-tenors, then why
> not also use early 17th c. Dublin pronunciation?  When I've raised
> this question on choral conducting lists, the response was that I was
> trying to parody period performance, which sometimes needs parody, as
> with Joshua Rifkin's performance of the Mass in B minor with a vocal
> quintet.  A couple of years ago I served on a doctoral committee in
> music performance.  The candidate was doing a period performance
> manual to Cantata 150.  He had taken a few linguistics courses, so in
> the course of his research and writing I encouraged him to look into
> the question of pronunciation.  He researched it and contacted a
> number of conductors who all insisted that the only pronunciation
> acceptable in singing Bach was Modern High German choral diction,
> which differs from spoken pronunciation largely in the use of an
> alveolar trill rather than a uvular fricative for /r/.
>
> Oddly, while this is true for English and German texts, it's not for
> Latin texts.  With a Latin text, the country of origin is important.
> Carmina Burana is sung with Austro-German Latin pronunciation, the
> Verdi Requiem with Roman, and contemporary Finnish compositions with
> Latin texts in Finnish Latin pronunciation.  Choirs will be retrained
> in Latin pronunciation for each variety.
>
> Herb
>
> On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 8:09 AM, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
>> Subject:      Dialects of poetry (Old Norse, Middle English, Shakespearean,
>>              etc.)
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Related questions could be raised in still broader terms, with even a synchronic dimension: To what extent, when we read poetry (or prose), are we obliged to emulate the dialect of the poet--or "hear" the poetry that way in our minds? Do Yeats's verses need to sound Irish, Dylan Thomas's Welsh? Do Eliot's poems gain from sounding British (what dialect of British?) or Midwestern-American? Should one not proficient in a poet's dialect refrain from reading the poem at all?! What does a reader owe to the author? How far can the author--or the author's biographical circumstances--control the finished text?
>>
>> --Charlie
>>
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