Episode 56

This week Swedish soprano Gisela Stille is with us to discuss the texts "Längtan heter min arvedel" and "I drömmen du är mig nära". We concentrate on the fun rounded H [ɧ], what I keep calling the C that turns back in over itself (but is officially called C with a curl) [ɕ], some of the differences between colloquial speech and lyric diction and a reminder of some spelling rules. At the end of the episode, I also compare some of the sounds of Swedish and Norwegian. Both of our poets today were members of the Swedish Academy at the same time. "Längtan heter min arvedel" is by Erik Axel Karlfeldt, who was also a member of the Nobel Committee and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature posthumously in 1931. "I drömmen du är mig nära" was written by Tor Hedberg (Wikipedia doesn't have this article in English!) and set to music by Emil Sjögren. On the episode, I refer often to Anna Hersey's terrific article in the NATS Journal of Singing (Jan/Feb 2012 edition) "An Introduction to Swedish Diction." If you aren't a subscriber to the Journal, the online link to the article shows up incomplete and with phonetic letters defaulting to regular letters, so if you are really interested in this topic it's important to get a copy of the actual article. Back copies of the Journal of Singing are also available for purchase. A big thank you to Anna Hersey for letting me know about her article, and to the people who have recently written about their own diction books and dissertations! I'm always thrilled to have new resources and as I wade through all this material, I'll keep everyone posted on what I find! Please contact me with questions, comments and suggestions (or new diction resources! :-) ) here, at the Facebook page, on Twitter @dictionpolice or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com