Richard,
Pound's rolled R is not a merkun R.  The merkun R is almost swallowed up, a non-entity. It is produced with the mouth almost closed, the lips slightly pursed, so that the passageway for the air is almost non-existent. It is as a result very brief in duration, UNSUSTAINABLE, unmusical. Although the way Pound says his Rs in the recording of Canto 1 would probably have sounded like anglophilic affectation to, say, ol' Pop Williams, William Carlos's dad, Pound uses a rolled, to native ears grandiose, SUSTAINED R for its musicality -- to achieve the proper syllabic QUANTITIES for his neo-Homeric verse. 
 
Tim Romano
Swarthmore Pennsylvania
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Richard Edwards <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 1999 6:46 AM
Subject: Re: recordings of Ezra
 
 
> What I find particularly extraordinary is the scottish roll to the "r"s in
> Pound's reading of Canto I (which I tracked down on the internet thanks to a
> recent "lead" posted to this list: see
> http://www.poets.org/LIT/poem/epound06.htm). I'd like to know how this
> strikes a native speaker of American English - is it idiosyncratic or does
> it come up from Pound's roots, in Idaho for instance?
> 
> Richard Edwards
> 
> >From: Richard Caddel <[log in to unmask]>
> >Reply-To: Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
> >  <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: recordings of Ezra
> >Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1999 22:41:44 GMT
> >
> >I've just been re-listening to tapes of EP reading - Hugh Selwyn
> >Mauberley and Canto 1 from Washington 1958; and a range of Cantos from
> >Spoleto, 1967. A couple of things strike me:
> >
> >1. anyone noticed the progression from 58 to 67? The strong yeatsian
> >tone of the earlier has modulated somewhat in the later one: ok, he's
> >older, the voice more tremulous and less consistent, but in the later
> >recording there's a greater range of tone and pitch - it seems to me.
> >
> >2. At Spoleto, in Canto XVI, the names of those gone to the war are
> >different to those in the present printed ed of the Cantos: I'm
> >working from home at present, without a full range of sources to hand
> >- can anyone tell me when these names changed?
> >
> >Anyone any other thots on Pound as Reader? It strikes me that he's at
> >his best when the highly stylised tones (derived from Yeats) drop away
> >and the greater range / variety shows through, even tho that seems to
> >be at a point when his voice is going.
> >
> >RC
> 
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