William Boletta wrote: >The general rule for all German words is that the main stress is on the >first syllable. There are many exceptions to this, of course (zurueck, >damit, vorauf are all accented on the second syllable, for instance), but >in the case of these two composers' names, the rule prevails, and the main >stress is most definitely on the FIRST syllable: BUX-tuh-who-duh and >PACH-ul-bell. The *secondary* stress is on the third syllable of the >respective names. W/ all respect, so far as friend Dietrich is concerned, his last name is ponounced w/ the main stress on the third syllable, the first, having a secondary stress and the second and fourth being sort of swallowed as in the English "the": Books-te-HOO-de. (I'm not claiming to be using correct linguists' terminology here.) Keeping my declaration from being entirely an ipse dixit is my recollection of how I heard my German speaking parents and their acquaintances pronounce it (when they were referring to a street or place in or near Hamburg, I believe, rather than to the composer). Walter Meyer