There is a bardic quality to the rolled "r"s which one also finds in
Yeats... a theatricality that was not uncommon among English
thespians of the time... more dramatic than the Scottish "r" which
is the same "r" as the Amurikin... there is also a singingness
in the use of the roll... first time I ever heard the recordings was
in a tny farmhouse in Warrnambool, Victoria (Australia), late at
night... on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio
National. I came in mid-way through the recording and didn't
know Pound's work well enough in those days to know who
I was listening to... but I recognised the singing! It was singing
this voice was doing... singing using speech!  A cantor...
a bard!  And why not!  They are indeed THE CANTOS!
It was this same voice that revisted me 12 years later in a
walk back to my hotel room in Queenscliff, Victoria... came to
me, uncontrolled and fullof power... a speech that later became
the opening monologue of my play about Pound...
"... Freedom is a wishbone caught up in the hand of a child
who cannot speak, for speaking does not make wishes happen.
Wht is closest to us must always remain a secret, and there
is tragedy in this..."
 
 
Stoneking
 
 
 
From: Barry Ahearn <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 1999 11:26 AM
Subject: Re: recordings of Ezra
 
 
> I recently played the Caedmon recording of Canto I for my students and
they also
> were struck by the rolling "r".  We can rule out Idaho since EP left there
at
> such an early age.  No one I know from the Philadelphia area (at the end
of the
> century, of course) sounds like that.  It strikes me as a deliberate
emphasis.
> Association of the primitive with the guttural?
>
> Barry Ahearn
>
> Richard Edwards wrote:
>
> > 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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