This is the second part of our 2-part series on Swedish diction, with mezzo-soprano Sofi Lorentzen discussing the text to Sibelius's Fågellek. This week we're talking about consonant combinations and clusters, including:

DJ, GJ and HJ (all the j-glide); LG [lj]; GN [ŋn]; NG [ŋ] and NK [ŋk]; KJ and TJ as well as the soft K [ɕ]; SJ, SKJ, STJ and SK before soft vowels [ɧ]; and the R combinations RD [ɖ], RG [rj], RL [l], RN [ɳ], RS [ʂ] and RT [ʈ].

Our text for today, Fågellek, is by Finnish author Karl August  Tavaststjerna, considered the first modern Swedish writer in Finnland. If this link works, I found a Swedish site that Google translated here. There are no free online recordings, but some that are available for purchase are Essential Highlights of Karita Mattila and Kim Borg Sings Sibelius Songs (which also has both songs from Episode 42 as well!). The preview clip I found is available at Passionato Classical Music Archives as well.

I also found a cute YouTube called Simple Swedish which is good for a laugh, and a website to learn called Learning Swedish Online that offers the first 7 lessons as a free download.

Feel free to contact me with questions, comments or suggestions at ellen@ellenrissinger.com