--- Ingo Duckerschein <ingo_d@y...> wrote:
--- Ingo Duckerschein <ingo_d@y...> wrote:
There's a > German TV presenter for Bavaria, Caroline
Reiber, > who has a tremendous
> trill in her 'r'.
Well, Caroline certainly knows how to make us
rrememberr herr :)
Dear Cindy, John, Ingo and co vocalisters,
I was a quite bussy in the last days, so I did not
respond immediately. Apart from that, I was a bit
puzzled by the original mail, becasue I had the
feeling Cindy knew exactly how a German 'r' should be
pronunciated, how it is pronunciated in Germany and
how it used to be pronunciated, yet was confronted
with the problem that some teachers and singers in the
U.S. for no apparant reason started to use the Englsh
'r' instead, and wanted to know how teachers and
singers in the U.S. were treating c.q. teaching their
'r''s.
I think most of us agree on the fact that, unlike in
the English, the German 'r' should be a rolling 'r',
although the amount of rolling varies greatly. It is
basically a softly rolling r, produced by putting your
tongue on the part of your palatum behind your upper
front teeth.
If you (or at least if a German speaker) produce(s) a
very soft rolling 'r', it sounds like a schwa, but is
produced completely diferently. I.m.o this is to
prefer to a flipped 'r', that is, if I understand it
well, produced with the tongue a little bit more
backwards. The softly rolling 'r' does not interfere
in any way with other consonants or vowels. (I
disagree with Cindy though, that consonants (not even
the 'h') are a good way to solve onset or attack
problems.)
The basic rolling pronunciation of the 'r' is
influenced by many things, of which the most important
ones are the consonants and vowels the 'r' is
surrounded by, emphasising, redundancy and volume.
If you want to hear a perfect example of how it should
be done i.m.o., you should listen to Fritz
Wunderlich's DGG recording of the beautiful Miller's
daughter, especially in the first song, 'Das Wandern'.
You will hear that he variies the amount of rolling
greatly, but always exactly in tune with the music and
the feelings to be expressed, and always perfectly
understandible. No rule (like 'when singing piano we
always have the emphasise consonants') Wunderlich
follows rigidly, and that is why it is so perfect. (We
could argue about his interpretation, but he was still
learning how to sing Lieder at that point, his
Salzburg and Edinborough recitals already show where
he was heading to).
Finally I would like to remember the wise words
Wunderlich borrowed from his teacher 'the words should
melt in your mouth like caviar': I think they say it
all.
Best greetings,
Dre
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