Thank you very much for the answer! I really appreciate it and from all the people I know how long it takes to make a really good and constructive written criticism (I gave up on it, as you can see... I do it differently now, and some things are lost with it, some are gained...).
I will try to react now just quickly. I cannot listen to my recording again at the moment, although I quite remember it since i listened it 'post factum' many times and have it in my "ear" so I'll speak from my memory, or just refrain fron any comments
Very well done, which, considering your professed and demonstrated attention to phonetic details should not come as a surprise to anyone, of course.
Haha, thanks ; P I would really appreciate some day if you join with a recording too, you are certainly one person in the online Latin word of phonetics I truly respect
There are some things, however, that I believe you should work on a bit,
Very probably! I usually take sometimes even hours to make a recording of this sort until I'm content with it, but this time I didn't want to spend too much time on that since I had too many tasks to do (=write the bold/underlined version, make the recording, edit the recording, make a review of another recording... etc. etc.), I'm the first to say it's far from perfect even when it comes just to the "acoustic effect" (I mean, I think that at some points I can just generally "sound better" than I did here or there, if I try more, work with my voice and so on and so forth...).
mainly the length of syllables long by positio[n, which, seeing that you are reading a poem, are quite important.
In fact, this is our point of contention from the day 1, so we will get back to it
We have a philosophical difference here...
Multas per gentes: don't be afraid to rest a bit longer on "per" here. In your recording, you rush through it, disturbing the rhythm of the verse.
Ok, I think this might be a problem. If I linger on it, I either create a long "e" which I absolutely refuse to do, or create an unnaturally long "r", which I refuse to do either. No, I don't think there should be any "trick" of that sort to make the syllables long by position sound long to us, non-Romans, who have no idea how Romans themselves listened to it. I respect the length of the individual phones, that's it, pertty much
I know we don't agree in this, since we already had this discussion on the beginning of this thread in 2015... but well, ok. I accept your criticism given your view of things
miseras: undue stress/accent on the last syllable, as if you are stressing the ictus. ("Inferias" is of course much better, in comparison.)
Perhaps I raise my voice, I can't decide whether I add an undue stress too, in the former case I wouldn't mind, in the latter case I would consider it a mistake, yeah. Thanks for pointing that out though. I wasn't affected by ictuses, it was rather that a pause followed and I raised my voice (whther it had other consequences, I don't know)
ut te postremo: debatable maybe, but I would have rested a little bit longer on the first syllable ("ut"). It is not as if you say a plain short /t/, but I think you could lengthen it a bit more, to make the rhythm of the verse clearer.
Well, that's the same problem again. If I heard anybody else doing it the way you imagine it, I would mark it as mistake on the basis of phone/phonemes lengths... and you say that this is because a special phonetical prominence is to be given to the syllables long by position. Well, I simply don't think so, but ok.. we just disagree
nequiquam alloquerer: you stumble a bit on the elision, I think, which makes you a bit irregular in the following syllables.
I don't think I stumbled: as I remember it, I lowered my voice on the elided "quam" (or in my case "quall" after the elision), on the other hand, I might have lingered there longer given the "ll" when I think of it again. On "lo" I raise my voice again, maybe that combination sounded to you as stumbling? It's possible.
The problem with "all-" is similar to the issue with the long /t/ in the previous line, made the more noticeable because of the contrast of its relative shortness with the very long /ī/ in the syllable before the elision. What is mainly wrong here though is that you lengthen the stop in "q", as if you are saying "allocquerer".
I both stressed it and as I said earlier, I raised the tone here, but I don't think I actually doubled the velar stop there, because there would be then the typical pause before the release and I do that quite religiously, I don't think it can be found here. But yes, there is a stress/pitch dissonance with what followed immediately before (which I don't think is a problem per se) which may create this effect of disonance or for you even doubling. But I don't think personally there is undue doubling...
quandoquidem: again, I think you lengthen the stop a bit, as if saying "quandocquidem". (Not as much as in the previous line, but still noticeable.)
I don't think there will be the pause I do before releasing a stop, when doubled, it's rather just that the syllable is stressed... but ok, I will relisten to that.
miser indigne: I think you should run them together more, instead of making the "-er" syllable closed (and hence longer than what the verse calls for).
That's our basic problem. To me, to how I think about Latin phonetics and poetry, it's not closed unless I make distinctly a double consonant a distinctly long vowel. I just don't believe in these tricks modern Latinists would help themselves to hear the metre. And I don't say I hear it, but am I the arbiter of what is phonetically a meter to a Roman or not? Are some of us? I sure value the opinion of historical phoneticians, but I don't think we find any advice there, it's just hypotheses.
The same as I refuse (although it sounds nice too) to stress the ictuses, I refuse to make these artificial phonetical differences between closed and open syllables. The closedness and openedness is emergent from the sound consecution = as I see it (and I think it's the more economical solution where we miss the data, it's the Occam's razor).
interea haec: way too long /r/; you are effectively saying "interre-". I suppose this is because you mentally prepare for the elision?
Edit: after relistening the "r" is too long on my taste, yes, I didn't notice it, thanks for pointing that out.
quae more: I would say "quae" a bit slower, but my comment about adjusting to the meaning is of course relevant here too.
sunt tristi: similarly, I would rest a tiny bit longer on "sunt", to make the three syllables all equally long.
Ok, it's your view: I think it shouldn't be done so ; -)
inferias: why the rising voice at the end? Similarly, the inflexion of the voice in the following "fraterno" sounds odd, as if you are not really thinking of what you are saying, but only reciting the meter.
I take the criticism about the voice tone and not always thinking about what I'm saying while focusing my mind on the phonetics... and me being in hurry. That surely is debatable and can be ameliorated, but to me it's not really important. But I take it!
multum manantia: you are making a pentameter out of this line, when it should be a hexameter, by saying "multum manantia" as two dactyls. The first "a" in "manantia" is properly long (you have an error in the text you are reading from,
This only works, again, if you induce artificial length markers to short/vs.long open vs.closed syllable distinction. I don't subscrive to that view at all... but fine.
Edit: this problem has been re-addressed in the later post. I missed you pointing out the error in the text too while quick-reading.
perpetuum: you are unquestionably saying "perpettuum".
That's possible, I would have to listen to it again...
Edit: after relistening, there is a short pause after the stressed "e", but it's not long enough to make a "tt" nor the pause is initiated after the vowel as one would expect with the sudden interrupton of onset of the stop, THEN a pause, then the release. So, I didn't do "tt" phonetically/orally (it wasn't articulated, nor I see a reason mentally why I would have done it consciously or not), but there is a small pause which you "unequestionably" interpret that way. If anything, I would say it's questionable... but whatever, I don't want to fight over this word, since I had some other problems with it of my own I mentioned somewhere above...
But again, I thank you for trying to catch even these small details, just as I always do, I appreciate it, even if we part in the conclusion!
ave atque vale: with respect to the meaning, I'm not sure I understand the decision to stress "atque" so much, instead of trying to make "av(e)" a bit more prominent?
I was recording this one like 6 times, then I chose the least problematic version in the editation (the rest of the poem, save one place, was done on the first try), since I wanted to be done with it and not spend another 30 minutes... there were some problems there both with my intonation and stresses... I'm sure it can be heard in some aspects
What are your thoughts on the caesuras? In my opinion, they should not be fully so clearly realised (if at all! -- but that is a discussion for another thread), at least not when they are in conflict with the meaning.
Well, in fact, if I read it the way I think is most ideal (and if I remember correctly, it's also what Wilfried Stroh proposes), I would read the whole thing as a prose with all those elisions that need to be done in poetry (whether they were appliclable outside or poetry or not).... that is maybe without the caesuras too. My current reading is some kind of compromise between not inducing artificial phonetic markers but both trying to perserve what I think was clearly thought as a phonetical marker by the Romans: the caesura (I can't see how it could be interpreted differently) although this clashes with what i just said before. I'm a little bit torn on caesuras.
Specifically, I would avoid producing such a clear pause in "indigne frater adempte", since "indigne" connects with "adempte". Similarly, I would not pause so long in "tristi munere" and "fraterno multum".
Sure!
Thanks again.
I know we have some basic disagreements about the way poetry should be read which lead to maybe 80% (or more?) points in your criticism (that is: open vs. long syllables phonetically). I wouldn't like this thread to be abducted by this discussion (and the last time we didn't come to any conclusion either), I would like to keep this thread simply for recordings and reviews, but then I'm sure you will want to discuss and debate that probably, if that is so: if we are to have a long back and forth discussion, can we create another thread in the phonetic section? I didn't want another long response from your side by me giving an almost point by point reaction to your point by point reaction, I don't know if it's inevitable, but if it is, then I propose a new thread. Although I do believe that if we remove the basic disagreement we have on reading the short vs. long syllables, we are left with whether I doubled or didn't double some consonant, which would come to relistening and measurements... which can be surely done too, but it's not a priority at this point. But I'm glad there is somebody who will provide me some feedback and dissects it bit by bit, I truly appreciate it, again. Don't interpret my disagreement in any negative or hostile way.
So, please, consider creating a new thread if we should get to a longer debate, please.
Thank you again!