Special sounds in the Bavarian dialect¶

Especially in the area of vowels and diphthongs, differences can be found compared to a standardised German pronunciation. For example, it can happen that a diphthong is spoken in Bavarian where only a vowel is spoken in German. However, the individual sounds are essentially known from the German phonetic repertoire described above.

The pronunciation of the a/å vowels, however, is a special feature. The front /a/ vowel, which is often also centralised in German and Bavarian, is joined by the sounds /ɒ/ and /ɑ/. With the sound /ɒ/, the lips are rounded and the tongue is at the back and bottom of the mouth. This means that the mouth is very wide open and compared to the front /a/, which is known from German, the position of the tongue is closer to the larynx. The same description applies to the sound /ɑ/. The difference with the /ɒ/ is that with the /ɑ/ there is no rounding of the lips. For this purpose, we would like to refer to the MRI recordings from the University of Glasgow on which the tongue position during the formation of these sounds can be traced and to which we link under "General IPA introduction".

In some cases, there are also other spellings in the Bavarian song text compared to the German spelling, which offer orientation but are not able to express certain subtleties. For example, the German "schon" becomes a Bavarian "scho", which is, however, pronounced and sung with a closed /o/ sound compared to German, or the spelling "Äugal" or "Äugerl" (small eyes), where the diphthong is to be sung as /ʔaːe/. Again, there are numerous shadings and dialectal variations. The audio recording can be used as a guide here.

Particular care should be taken that the consonants are not aspirated too strongly when singing and also that the /s/ sound is never pronounced voiced as [z]. In addition, syllables without a vowel occur from time to time, which are then to be sung on the respective voiced consonant. This is often a nasal. An example is the word "lei-dn", in which the schwa sound common in standard German is elided.

The pronunciation of the above-mentioned South Bavarian influences differs in some points from the Middle Bavarian pronunciation and is mainly chosen because of spellings in the song text we have chosen. For example, in some places there are more rounded vowels like the /œ/ instead of a /e/ due to the spelling, or the word "net" for "not" changes to "nit".

Critical Report¶

Since the focus of this edition is on correct pronunciation in singing, the critical report is deliberately kept short. From a philological, musicological and linguistic point of view, however, some fundamental decisions have been made in this edition which we do not wish to leave entirely uncommented.

Square brackets or cross marks to indicate a phonetic or phonological transcription have been omitted in favour of highlighting with bold text.

Stresses are assigned on the basis of word stresses when speaking. We use primary and secondary accentuations, which do not necessarily coincide with the musical phrase, especially in the case of longer words. Accentuations are not shown, but usually result from the musical phrasing.

Individual syllables are not marked by punctuation as usual, but by hyphens. Analogous to the orthographic text, underscores are used at the ends of words in addition to hyphens to make the transcription easier to read.

Syllable boundaries are systematically shifted when consonants occur at the end of a syllable within a word. In these cases, these consonants are added to the onset, i.e. the beginning of the following syllable. This rule is only deviated from in exceptional cases, such as the combination with extremely short note values. This procedure is particularly understandable in combination with longer note values and melismas, since it is a declared aim of many singers to linger as long as possible on sonorous sounds such as vowels.

Diphthongs are transmitted in a completely different way than when speaking, as can be seen in Figure 3 (see "IPA for German"). Consideration is also given to the fact that when singing, the first vowel of the diphthong is usually sung longer than the second vowel or the transition from one vowel to the other, which cannot be recorded in the transcription, or only inadequately. Among other things, the often lower position of the larynx in classical singing can explain the transmission of the second vowel in each case. Diphthongs in Bavarian often differ from German diphthongs and the transcription is often closer to speaking than to singing because of the desired authenticity of the text. However, the basic idea in transcription remains essentially the same here.

The "r" in German can be pronounced in many different ways, as already described under "IPA for German". Because of this complexity, we have usually opted for the simplest variant, often with a low schwa. Here, however, there is often the possibility of individually adapting the pronunciation according to preferences and depending on the interpretation. Therefore, the transcriptions in these places are to be judged as suggestions but not as static prescriptions for pronunciation. In some areas of Bavaria, the Bavarian rolled front [r], i.e. the trill, is very well known. However, many pronunciations of the "r" are quite common and are not (any longer) interpreted as an indicator of a non-dialect speaker. Pronunciation of the "r" as a fricative should, however, be avoided in the context of Bavarian.

Aspiration in consonants is not transcribed because it is predictable on the basis of phonological rules and also tends to be less when singing than when speaking. This is especially true for solo singing or for Bavarian pieces, as is the case here.

A liaison is used in some places to indicate that they are originally two words but are to be pronounced as one word because of spelling or composition. The aim is to provide better orientation in relation to the original orthographic spelling.

The original spelling of the song text, which is taken from the edition used as a template, has been retained except for the indicated nasalisation at the "n" and has not been normalised. This deviation is due to the transcription style, which in this case is based on Middle Bavarian, where this pronunciation would be unusual. We generally assume that older spellings may also contain information on pronunciation, which is why it has only been cautiously adjusted.

The performance instructions for the individual songs and also information such as "ritard." or "In tempo" in the musical text correspond in our edition to those of the original, but their spelling has been standardised. The musical text has been edited according to modern notation rules.

In the few cases where the original does not clearly indicate the position of dynamic indications - especially forks - we have tacitly adapted them to the phrasing. Trills, staccatos and accents - clearly recognisable as such - correspond to the original from 1913.

The source indicates the following note by the publisher at the end of the score: "Through the mediation of the citizen school teacher Mar. Margreiter, this tender song with indication of the prelude and the folk accompaniment instruments was communicated to me by the old "Sternsinger" Eduard Strobl in Hopfgarten. 1910. - Fr. Kohl."

English Translation¶

"It's getting dark soon"

It's already getting dark, it's already getting night,
So I'm coming to you, my saviour, on your watch.
We sing a song to the little child, the little one.
You may not sleep, I only hear you cry.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, sleep sweetly, dear child.

Forget now, O little child, your sorrow, your grief,
That you must suffer in the stable on the heath.
Angels adorn your cot,
Would not be more beautiful in the noblest house.
Ei, ei, ei, sleep sweetly, dear child.

O child, you lie there in the manger so beautiful;
It seems to me that I can never leave you there.
I wish you the sweetest rest from my heart;
The angels from heaven are tucking you in.
Eeny, eeny, eeny, sleep sweetly, dear child.

Close your little eyes in peace and quiet
And give me your blessing as I say goodbye.
Then my sleep will be quite carefree,
Then I can look forward to lying down.
Sleep sweetly, my dear child.

Further reading¶

Coming soon.