Russian-English Transliteration: A List of Operatic and Other Works, with Names of Dramatic Characters Author(s): M. Montagu-Nathan and S. W. Pring Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 58, No. 898 (Dec. 1, 1917), pp. 545-546 Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/908299 Accessed: 18-03-2015 04:46 UTC

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This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Wed, 18 Mar 2015 04:46:02 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE MUSICAL TIMES.-DECEMBER I, 1917. 545

Mr. Herbert Hodge, St. Nicholas Cole Abbey (four ' Khota Aragonesa'; sometimespuzzling, as in the alter- recitals)-Carillon in A minor, de la Tombelle; March natives ' Materlink' (right)and ' Meterlink' (wrong) and from 'Olav Trygvason,' Grieg; The Brook, Alcock; 'Viardo'*; and, on occasion, completelybaffling, as in Cantilknein A flat,Wolstenholme ; Prelude and Fugue in ' Gamlet,'which would not easilybe identified,if seen by a B minor, Back; Prelude and Fugue in D minor, passer-byon a theatreplacard, with Shakespeare'sPrince Mendelssohn. ofDenmark; as in 'Korol (King) Lir,' anotherShakespearean Mr. F. G. MitfordOgbourne, St. Matthew's, Denmark royalpersonage (he who mistakenlyput his faith in princesses of his own and Hill-Sonata No. 3, Mlendelssohn;Air with Variations, rearing); as in 'Vatto,' whichcould hardly in A, Best; Toccata and Fugue in D minor,Bach. failto evoke fromadmirers of thispainter of shepherdessesa Mr. H. St. familiarCockney exclamation. Percy Richardson, Margaret's, Durham- It is of mention Fantaisie in Franck; Three Choral Preludes,Back; worthy thatthe Russianssometimes make A, little such as that in the title of Lament, Harvey Grace; Choral, Lied, and Carillon, queer mistakes, Rimsky's Scherzo in A Bairstow; March so-called 'Simfonietta(sic) on Russian Themes' (which Vierne; flat, (Suite shouldof course No. have been Sinfonietta),and that we British 2), Boillmann. must confessto occasional blunderssuch as an alternative Mr. Coleman, The t-. Guildhall, Londonderry-Solemn erroneousversion of the name Sevast6pol-oftenspelt with a March, Mendelssohn-Karg-Elert;Prelude and Fugue in of its and also to a in b place v, fairlygeneral misplacement C, Bach; Largo, Handel; Concert Fantasia on of the emphasisin this and kindredwords (here indicated Scottish Airs, Mansfield; Introductionto Act 3, ' by an accent). Lohengrin.' In the listof ,in cases wherethe operais of modern Mr. Harold M. Dawber, St. George's, Stockport-Prelude originor is of novel interest,and where a translationof the 'Carey's,' Charles Wood; Impromptuin B minor, text in its original formis available, the name of the Purcell Coleridge-Taylor;Concert Scherzo, J. Mansfield; composer, the author, and the English translatorand 'Pomp and Circumstance,'Elgar. publisher(these in brackets)are added in footnotes. Mr. Allan Brown, Wesleyan Methodist Central Hall, As regardsthe operaticcharacters, we have deemed it Tooting-La F&te-Dieu, Dubois; Fountain Reverie, wiser not to group them accordingto the works in which PercyFletcher; TriumphalMarch, Hollins.-At Battersea theyare to be found,presuming that the interestsof those Town Hall, 'Finlandia' ; Fanfare,Lemmens; Finale in who concernthemselves with Russian music, but who are D flat, Wolstenholne.-At Wesleyan Central Hall, not Russianscholars, are best servedby an alphabeticallist Southall, Overture in C, Hollins; ' William Tell' in whicha givenname mayconveniently be sought. Overture; Preludein C sharpminor, Rachmaninov. We have omittedthe charactersfrom Korsakov's 'Pan Mr. A. C. Walsh, St. Mary's, Aston Brook-' En forme Voevoda' because theirnames are Polish, and thus, in the d'Ouverture,' Smart; Ave Maria and Grand March, vernacular,stand in Latin characters. Grand Schubert; Offertoire,Wtily. OPERAS AND OTHER WORKS. Mr. H. C. Tonking,St. Stephen's,Wallbrook-Fugue in E, Best; Sonata, Stanford; Postludein E flat,Smart. Anydita Kikim6ra Asyat Klira Mr. H. Matthais Turton, St. Aidan's, Leeds-Allegro Milichil No. 2), Pietro A. Yon; Pensee d'Automne, (Sonata Baba Yaggi MerchantKalishnikov Jongen; threemovements from Symphony No. 3, Vierne; Mlida Biryilki Berceuse, Olsson; Minuet,Debussy; Sonata, Stanford; Boris Godun6v Mtsyri Lied des Elfes, and Etude de Chrysanthemes, Concert, VWraShel6ga Bonnet. Boyairynya Oprichnik Charoddika Pan Voev6da APPOINTMENTS. (The Enchantress) Petrtishka Mr. F. A. Eccles, and choirmaster, Dama J. organist Spencer Little Pikovaya StreetCongregational Church, Leamington Spa. (The Shoes) (Queen ofSpades) Mr. W. Granger,organist and choirmaster,St. John the PrinceKh61msky Ranmoor,Sheffield. DmitriDonsk6i Prince Evangelist, Nikitich Seribryanny Mr. AlexanderGunner, organist and choirmaster,St. Paul's, Dobrynya Pyaitnitsy Grove Park, Chiswick. Dubr6vsky+ Dubinushka (Vendredis,Fridays) Dr. WilliamA. Hall, organistand choirmaster,All Saints', Eastbourne. Rogn6da Ei ikhnem Mr. FrederickJ. Tarris, organistand choirmaster,Barking RusIlka ParishChurch. Eremiishka Ruslin and Lyudmila Evginy On6gin Sadk6 Fountainof Bakhchisardi Skazka RUSSIAN-ENGLISH TRANSLITERATION : Skomor6khi(Mummers) A LIST OF OPERATIC AND OTHER WORKS, Gopik Skup6i Rytsar WITH NAMES OF DRAMATIC CHARACTERS. G6re ot Umai (Misfortune (NiggardlyKnight) of BeingClever)? Sneguirochka BY M. MONTAGU-NATHAN AND S. W. PRING. Goryuisha (Snow-Maiden) Gromob6i SorochfnetsFair In the Novembernumber we dealt withthe problemof a Stinka Rizin logical spellingof Russiannames in Englishcharacters, and Miromets furnishedwhat we believedto be a practicaland systematic IvinIliya. Susinin Tamrira solution. A list Russiannames was for of provided reference. Tanydisha It has since been suggestedthat the above-mentioned Kashchdi TaraisBilba schedulerequires a supplementin the shape of a list of the Kamarinskaya Trepik names of works which have been, or are likely to be, Kazach6k Tsar Fedor performedhere. This we now provide,together with a Khovinshchina Tsar Saltin furtherlist of namesof operaticcharacters, so thatthose who Kftezh Tsar's Betrothed write about or in any way referto Russian music (in * programmesor criticisms,&c.), but who do not know The translator of an article in a Times Russian Su.pp5lementby Russian, may have a comprehensiveguide to consistentMr. Chukovsky, in which the perpetrator of some terrible 'howlers' in translation was deservedly trounced, thus proved himself to be spelling. curiously deficientin a knowledge of Russian literary history, and also In dealingwith the titlesof operaswe have ignoredthose of musical matters. of non-Russian origin. Russians, as we have already t Ippolitov-Ivanov-Turgenev (Garnett--Heinemann). attemptto render foreignwords and names Napravnik-Pushkin (Keane-Bobn). explained, I ppolitov-Ivanov--Griboedov (Pring-Nutt). phonetically,which is sometimeshelpful, as in ' Don Khuan,' ii Kastalsky-Turgenev (Garnett-Heinemann) B

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Wed, 18 Mar 2015 04:46:02 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 546 THE MUSICAL TIMES.-DECEMBER 1, 19I7.

Vaktilathe Smith Zhenitba(Match-maker)* DISCUSSION OF THE ARTICLE THAT APPEARED IN Voev6da Zolot6iPetush6k OUR NOVEMBER NUMBER. Vrdbel (Golden Cockerel) In replyto Mr. RobinH. Legge'scomments which appeared Zvezdoliky at the footof theirarticle, the authorswrite as follows: The faultof The Timesis not so much it not CHARACTERS FROM PRINCIPAL RUSSIAN OPERAS. (I) that does use its system, as that the system contains aids to Alkon6st Militrisa pronunciation. ' Afr6n Misdil (2) Lvoff'is certainlya wrongtransliteration of jTBOB&, Mizgir the ' ff'being a phoneticversion of Bab. Barbarikha Mstivoi (3) Why is 'kh' voted 'horrible'? Mr. Legge cites 'khaki' and such words as and Baydin 'lakh'; these, 'Khan,' Berendei Nadizhda ' Khedive,' and ' Khartoum,'being in common use here,have Bermyata Naina conventionalisedthe ' kh' as the equivalentof the letterwith whichthe Russians begin them. ' Astrakhan' shows the letter Bobylikha Nati mov Biirya Nezhaita insidea word. To use 'h' alone wouldbe as illogicalas to Buslaievna use the French'j,' whichhas been discardedin thissystem. Mr. Legge statesthat the wordshe citesare not English; Oksina (Oxana) Chaplitsky but thenneither is Kharkov. When he asked half-a-dozen Chekalinsky Ovlhir friendsto utterthis place-name, did he mentionthat the 'kh' Chernob6g was a symbolor equivalentfor a Russian letterhaving the Chernom6r Painas soundof a 'deeply guttural' 'h'? Had he done this, and Chub Painnochka told them, intothe bargain,that the emphasisis on the first Parisi syllable,they would surelynot have pronouncedthe word Dod6n Petr6vna 'Kark6ff,' but would have given it its correctsound- D6mna, Podkolksin provided,of course, that theirutterance was not impeded Dtida Polkain by a London dialect. Povarikha Duny~isha But does Mr. Legge intendto subjectall the suggested spellingsto this 'tryingit on the dog' process? That would Er6shka Radegaist indeed be 'horrible.' Could half-a-dozentypical Britons Ratmir who had strainedat such a gnat as ' Kh~rkov' be expected Farlaif Ruaild to swallow ' Pobedon6stsev,'and comfortablyaccommodate ? Fedor Poyirok its os-siferousprotuberance It would be to write Fekla Sabfirova highly dangerous 'Rachmaninov,' Finn Shaklovity sincethe 'ch' already representsthe letterwith which the Fomri Shchelkilov name Chaikovskybegins, and Russians,many of whomhave theirmusical education in Shfiisky apparentlybegun England, might Galitsky mistakethis 'ch' forthe other'ch' and writehome glowing Sirin accounts of a Prelude in Ginna ?t Sktila charming by Rach-[as latch] Golftsyn Sobikin maninov. Moreover, were we-admitting aids to Gorislhva Sobinin pronunciation-toaccept the ' ch' in this name,we should GrishkaKuterma, Sol6kha be as likelyto get a hard 'k' sound as we are when Saxons Stepain speak of the Scotch lochs--pronouncingthe word 'lock.' Gryazno6i We thereforeto retainthe 'kh.' * Gvid6n S irin propose Gzak Susainin (4) Regardingthe emphasison 'Musorgsky,'we cannot Svetoz'ir agree withMr. Legge as to the 'contemporary'emphasis on Russians on the second Izyasliv the firstsyllable. Many emphasise Tatiyaina syllable. It is somewhatcurious that those Russians(and Kalknik Tkachikha there are not a few) who firsthear of the composer of 'Boris' from oftencorrect their informers Kashch6evna Tokmaikov English people, Tomb of Ask6ld and speak of the name as 'Musogorsky'-a version used Khfvri Russia ' Khovwnsky Tor6pka by TwentiethCentury whenreferring to the Masters of the RussianMusic' on this Kochkarev Ticha monograph composer. (5) Mr. Legge is not lucidin his referenceto Shalyapin's Konchik ' He is of the factthat the Konchak6vna Vainya ya.' forgetfulapparently present Varliam systemrenounces phonetics, and would have us pull facesin Ksiniya (Xenia) in orderto inducethe man in the streetto Kupaiva Vasily print pronounce Vladimir Russianlike a native. Lel Vlasievna (6) As to Medtner,we thinkthat it is in this particular, Levko Voislaiva and not in the matter of transliterationas a whole, Lukai V6lkhova that Mr. Legge resemblesthe immortalDick, whom he Lumir Vseslav quotes. Does he not mean, when he says that he has Vsevolod seen a ' d-less' signature,a Russian signature? We have Lykov of and in Lyubaisha Vyshita knowledge some European signatures, these the ' d' appears. This beingthe case, shouldMr. Legge persist, Lyubiva he will be whennext in Russia to exhibithis own Lyudmila Yarilo expected Yaromfr name in puris naturalibus,for that, one supposes, is how as it the off its Malylita Yaroslivna the Russians--pulling, were, brogue Matilta Yiry extremity--wouldrender it. an in the that the * 'Lancelot' in article Refereesays Musorgsky's fragment was announced (in 1915) by Mr. Rosing with 'Beezet' is no under its Russian name, and can hardly have been identified by those comparisonofr'Borodeen' argument, who had read of it in the English or French literatureof Russian music, 'because the Frenchalphabet is practicallythe same as our or had listened to lectures on the subject, or even by those who were own.' But, as was indicatedin a replysent to that journal, acquainted with Mrs. Voynich's translation (i895) of Gogol's entire the 'ee's' in 'Borodeen' are somethingover and above comedy. It would seem to be in the interest of everybcdy concerned that promotersof Russian should abide by accepted titles, or, at * It should be mentioned that whereas 'E. N. 'of the Birmingham all events, refer to them; otherwise it may befall that some Russian Daily Post condemns this 'ch' in fear of such a pronunciation as impresario may play 'Zolotoi Petushok' to empty benches, whilst a 'Shaikovsky,' the 'Music and Art' contributor of the Yorkshire Post rival secure the full house that would assemble to hear shudders at the of the result of a hard 'ch '- may presumably ' possibility hearing-as again the warning cry of the Golden Cockerel. Kye-kovsky.' But as the protective'T'has produced from the lips of + The formGanna is retained in preference to Hanna on the ground musicians of no mean repute such a version (we become for a moment that the had a G and not an in mind when the as we see no reason to composer aspirate setting full-fledgedphoneticians) ' 'Titchicoughskee,' work. abandon our refuge of puristic' transliteration.

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