Re: Pronunciation of 'Amen' and 'Jesu' in Walton's music

K. Edgcombe a écrit :
In article <Pine.LNX.4.64.0605311353200.23876@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Matthew Huntbach <mmh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It's the correct vocative, the "u" in "Jesus" deriving from the "u" in
Hebrew "Joshua" rather than the "u" in the Latin "-us" ending of the
second declension.

Correct pronunciation is "Yay-zoo", at least for Catholics.

Interesting. Do you say "yay-zoos" for the nominative as well, in ordinary
English? If not, why the difference? Or are you referring here to Latin
text rather than English?
(I think the Walton the OP wanted to know about is an English text, isn't it?)

It is.

I would say (and sing) Jeezyou in an English text and "Yay-zoo" in a Latin one
(or a German one) - I think this would be the common practice in English choirs.

Ah! That's very interesting. Thank you!

I don't think I've ever encountered the vocative in a French text, but I don't
think the French generally use the "Y" for "J", do they? - even when singing
Latin?

I can't say that I've ever read 'Jesu' in a French text either. We pronounce 'Jesus' and 'Jesu' when singing in Latin in the same way, I think, as yours, in the Italian tradition.

For some works by French composers written on Latin texts when the Gallican pronunciation was still usual in France, some choir-masters might insist that the singers sing in a historically correct way, and in such a case, 'Jesu' would indeed be pronounced /Zezy/*, in the French way.

*That really looks quite odd, when written in ASCII-IPA. I don't really know how to transcribe the French "J" and "u" in another way that would make sense.

--
Isabelle Cecchini
.

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