>David Pickett wrote:
>
>I chanced to be listening to one of the Dallas/Fort Worth classical
>music stations this morning when the presenter announced "The Merry
>Wives of Windsor Overture by Nicolai Otto" (sic) and followed it by a
>piece by Carl Reinickey (Reinecke -- pronounced to rhyme with
>Mickey).  There is still an ongoing collection to be made of these howlers.

Hey, youse guys are all pikers.  Back in the '70s at Indiana we used 
to refer to the instrument in question most lovingly as the 
Har-pisi-chord.  (Except to Redstone, of course, who had the 
thankless job of keeping the monsters all working properly.)

But it was a happy day for our Pro Arte Consort when the touring 
instrument the school had ordered for us arrived:  a 
professionally-built Z Flemish single with 2 x 8' (and we had to 
fight the musicologists to get the 2 x 8' instead of 1 x 8', 1 x 4', 
but I was SO glad we won that one).  A very stable instrument that 
got hauled all over the state of Indiana and beyond.  (The General 
Motors station wagons of the time from our motor pool were BIG, and 
had a back seat that divided 1/3-2/3, so we could carry 5 people in 
renaissance or baroque drag with 3 in the front and 2 plus the tail 
of the harpsichord in the back, and still have room for our lute and 
viols in the back back.)

But I have to say that back in the '70s, at least, the Public Radio 
station at Indiana hired doctoral students in music, mostly 
musicologists or choral conductors, as their classical disc jockeys, 
and they had a pretty good track record.  A colleague and friend had 
one of those jobs, and nailed the pronunciations every time.  (Don't 
know how they did with Polish, Asian, or Arabic names, though, 
although we had a senior professor who specialized in oriental music 
who could have coached them.)

John


-- 
John R. Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411  Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[log in to unmask])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html