How do you pronounce a BWV number?

[lelle]

Since my native language is not english I have been wondering about this. Bach's pieces are numbered with BWV numbers, like BWV 543. But how would you pronounce this?

In Sweden we say each letter separately, and in addition we pronounce the "W" like a "V" and then we say the number like this:

Bee - vee - vee Fivehundredfortythree

Is it the same in english? Or is it

Bee - double-u - vee Fivehundredfortythree?

Bee - double-u - vee Five four three?

Which way is the correct way to say it?

[Bob]

I thought we said "Bach (with some throat sound) verk-uh versihkness"

Or juts click on the audio button on the right
https://www.dict.cc/?s=BWV


If I was saying the letters I would just say BWV -- "Bee, double U, Vee."



Just a relate thing I found...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BWV

[lelle]

I thought we said "Bach (with some throat sound) verk-uh versihkness"

Or juts click on the audio button on the right
https://www.dict.cc/?s=BWV

So when you present a Bach work to the audience you say

"I'm going to play Prelude and Fugue in a-minor Bach verk-uh versihkness Fivehundredfortythree"

?

[retrouvailles]

I always just say "B-W-V number", and that is how most of the musical community around me says it. No one goes through the trouble of saying Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, similar to how everyone says "K number", instead of Köchel, when referring to Mozart's music.

[birba]

Geez, you really learn something new everyday, here. 

[pianowolfi]

Or juts click on the audio button on the right
https://www.dict.cc/?s=BWV

Haha that J.S.Bach sounds like "Jay is back" 

[Bob]

Yeah, I wouldn't take that computer pronunciation too literally.  It's fairly accurate though I think but I'm not a German expert.


I haven't heard people using BWV numbers too much.  If they are announcing a piece, I have heard people say, "I'm playing the c minor prelude and fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1."

Otherwise I would think saying the German Bach-Werke-Veshich#$%#@! or just BWV (Bee double u vee) is ok.

[_nisa_]

Or be-we-vao to show off
 

[eminemvsrach]

I wonder, who was the guy who arranged all the Bach pieces in BWV order?

[Bob]

"Wolfgang Schmieder assigned the BWV numbers in 1950, to indicate the work's placement in the Bach works catalogue titled Thematisch-systematisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke von Johann Sebastian Bach (Thematic-systematic catalogue of musical works of Johann Sebastian Bach)."
~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BWV