# Pronouncing composers names...continued



## Fsharpmajor

I ran across this website when I needed to find out how to pronounce "Heitor Villa-Lobos." It's got the pronunciation of every composer that I searched for, including some obscure ones:
*
http://www.forvo.com*


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## emiellucifuge

Thank you very much


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## sospiro

Fsharpmajor said:


> I ran across this website when I needed to find out how to pronounce "Heitor Villa-Lobos." It's got the pronunciation of every composer that I searched for, including some obscure ones:
> *
> http://www.forvo.com*


Useful. Thanks.


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## Krumcito

villa lobos is a southamerican last name


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## Weston

Nice site! Now I know that the pretentious announcer on late night classical radio who pronounced the "e" in Debussy with almost a cross between an "ih" and an "uh" diphthong sound with the accent on the first syllable was just flat wrong.

It's also nice to know when I ask for provolone using four syllables I should not worry about the puzzled looks I get from the Neanderthals around me.


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## Fsharpmajor

I tested it on "Raiff" Vaughan Williams, and it got that right.


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## Earthling

Weston said:


> Nice site! Now I know that the pretentious announcer on late night classical radio who pronounced the "e" in Debussy with almost a cross between an "ih" and an "uh" diphthong sound with the accent on the first syllable was just flat wrong.


LOL - that was the first thing I checked out on that site!


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## Chris

Very useful this. I tried 'Cesar Franck' and it gave a reassuringly Gallic pronunciation. Radio 3 announcers usually pronounce Franck as 'fronk' and it sounds dreadful.

You can record your own version of a pronunciation on the site. If there is a Spanish TalkClassical member with the necessary microphone will you PLEASE record a correct pronunciation for 'Don Quixote'. I'm sure it is said something like 'don kee hoe tay' but the only version on the site is by an American who says 'donkey odie'


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## TresPicos

Chris said:


> Very useful this. I tried 'Cesar Franck' and it gave a reassuringly Gallic pronunciation. Radio 3 announcers usually pronounce Franck as 'fronk' and it sounds dreadful.
> 
> You can record your own version of a pronunciation on the site. If there is a Spanish TalkClassical member with the necessary microphone will you PLEASE record a correct pronunciation for 'Don Quixote'. I'm sure it is said something like 'don kee hoe tay' but the only version on the site is by an American who says 'donkey odie'


Try "Don Quijote" instead, with a "j".

Man, that American was really clueless.


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## Chris

TresPicos said:


> Try "Don Quijote" instead, with a "j".


Aah...that's better


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## chrisg

I do enjoy peoples attempts at pronouncing composers names. I for one am sure that I've pronouced many a composers name incorrectly. Often there is too much tongue twisitng involved.


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## Fsharpmajor

chrisg said:


> I for one am sure that I've pronouced many a composers name incorrectly. Often there is too much tongue twisitng involved.


Krzysztof Penderecki is an interesting one to try. I've just found out that I've been pronouncing it wrong all along.


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## Il Seraglio

I had been pronouncing Gorecki wrong for as long as I could remember until I watched BBC4's sacred music show when it focused on the music of Polish composers in the 20th century.


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## superhorn

I'm something of an amateur linguist myself,and I frequent linguistics websites and forums.

Here are some pointers: Mussorgsky is accented on the FIRST syllable,not the second. 
Many mistakes in pronouncing composer's names are the result of putting the emPHA-sis on the wrong Syl-LA-Ble.

Bartok is pronounded Bar-toke,rhyming with spoke,not talk. Hungarian words are always accented on the first syllable. It's not Zsa Zsa Ga -BOR, but GA-bor.
Kodaly is not Ko-DIE-ee but Ko-die.
In the Armenian name Khatchaturian, the KH is prounounced gutturally as in Chutzpah.

The Russian first names Sergei,Andrei, Kiril, and Boris are accented on the second syllable, but Igor is pronounced as the English word "Eager",as in eager beaver. Mikhail is pronounced Mi-Kha-EEL, the KH as in chutpah. Vladimir is pronounced vla-DEE-mir,not VLA-di-mir.

Einojuhani Rautavaara is pronounced AY-no,not eye-no yu-ha-ni. Rau as in Bow-wow ta vaara.

Ligeti is LI-geh-ti. Gyorgy is pronounced D'yord'y. With the o like the German O with umlaut.
It's one syllabel,not two.

Alberto Ginastera is not pronounced Hee-na-stera but Jee-nastera as in blue jeans. The name is Italian, not Spanish.


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## Earthling

Great Zeus, I feel hopeless!


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## tgtr0660

Krumcito said:


> villa lobos is a southamerican last name


There's no "southamerican" language. Villa Lobos is a last name from Brazil, where they speak portuguese, therefore is a last name in portuguese.

Just so you know, there's more than 100 languages being spoken in South America, of course the primary one is Spanish (Castillian it should be called), then portuguese, and many native tongues. We also have some Dutch in the Guyana...


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## Kjell

Ooh, awesome! Found out how to pronounce Chopin, Debussy and Dvorak.


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## Aramis

There is common mistake in pronouncing Shostakovich. Not many people know that it's should be: Moctakobny. With accent on "tako".

Same with Prokofiev - Npokobeb

or Tchaikovsky - Yankobckn


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## Huilunsoittaja

Aramis said:


> There is common mistake in pronouncing Shostakovich. Not many people know that it's should be: Moctakobny. With accent on "tako".
> 
> Same with Prokofiev - Npokobeb
> 
> or Tchaikovsky - Yankobckn


That's if you wrote it out in Cyrillics right?

Huh! I used pronounce Shostakovich like ShosTAKovich, but just for fun.


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## stepnwolf

*Correct Pronunciation*

As long as I was speaking to myself, it didn't make much difference how composers' names were pronounced. But now that I've fallen in with some pretty smart music lovers, I've gotten more compulsive about such things. Going to http://www.forvo.com/, I found a lot of composers' names pronounced by native speakers. If you know some German, you'll know that the last letter h in Hindemith is not pronounced. but where does the accent fall in Debussy? And how do we deal with Szymanowski? What the French do with Berlioz will surprise the dickens out of you.

And when you've tired of names, you can spend time listening to a bit of Welsh or Ojibwa.


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## Fsharpmajor

Here's a previous thread on this topic:

*http://www.talkclassical.com/9409-pronouncing-composers-names-continued.html*


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## Toccata

Fsharpmajor said:


> Here's a previous thread on this topic:
> 
> *http://www.talkclassical.com/9409-pronouncing-composers-names-continued.html*


Interesting. Yet another instance of a previous thread. It's not at all surprising that a topic like this must have come up before. They're usually quite easy to find by keying in a few relevant words in the search facility. I've used it quite a lot and found all sorts of interesting previous threads.


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## Head_case

This thread is provoking a crisis of confidence in what I thought was my ability to fumble together any sort of pronounciation. 

Let me check:

How do you pronounce "Smith"?


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## Head_case

> Huh! I used pronounce* Shostakovich *like ShosTAKovich, but just for fun.


This one's easy.

'Shosty' for short


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## Krummhorn

Fsharpmajor said:


> Here's a previous thread on this topic:
> 
> *http://www.talkclassical.com/9409-pronouncing-composers-names-continued.html*





Opal said:


> Interesting. Yet another instance of a previous thread. It's not at all surprising that a topic like this must have come up before. They're usually quite easy to find by keying in a few relevant words in the search facility. I've used it quite a lot and found all sorts of interesting previous threads.


For ease of searching the topic, we've merged the newest one into the older existing thread.

For new users, the "Search" option on the top brown bar of any page works really well in finding previous topics.


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## Chris

A week or two ago there was a program on BBC Radio 3 in which Kal-Ming Ng, Director of the ensemble Charivari Agreable, was interviewed. Ng is pronounced just as written, with no vowel sound at all. Strange to listen to.


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