The Poet's Love(r): A Musical Interpretation and Dialogue Based on Robert Schumann and Heinrich Heine's Dichterliebe, Op. 48

Creators and Editors: Chanda VanderHart, Rebecca Babb-Nelsen, Eric Stoklossa New Voice and Piano Edition in the Original Key Score Encoding: Ronen Nissan ©2025 Creators and Editors: Chanda VanderHart, Rebecca Babb-Nelsen, Eric Stoklossa New Voice and Piano Edition in the Original Key Score Encoding: Ronen Nissan ©2025 The Poet ’ s Love(r): A Musical Interpretation and Dialogue Based on Robert Schumann and Heinrich Heine ’ s Dichterliebe, Op. 48 — With New English Translations and Original Poetry by Rebecca Babb-Nelsen © 2019 The Poet’s Love(r): A Musical Interpretation and Dialogue Based on Robert Schumann and Heinrich Heine’s Dichterliebe, Op. 48 — With New English Translations and Original Poetry by Rebecca Babb-Nelsen © 2019 The Poet’s Love(r): A Translational and Artistic Reimagining of Schumann’s Dichterliebe In 2019, three colleagues and friends embarked upon a translational, linguistic, and artistic exploration of Robert Schumann’s most celebrated song cycle, Dichterliebe, Op. 48. The initiative, conceived by newly appointed Professor of Voice at Texas Tech University, Eric Stokloßa, brought together Vienna-based musicologist, author, and collaborative pianist Chanda VanderHart, and poet, translator, German literature scholar, and professional singer Rebecca Babb-Nelsen, in a creative project that would come to be known as The Poet’s Love(r). Originally envisioned as a new, singable translation of Schumann’s cycle, the project soon evolved into a deeper act of reinterpretation. While translating Song IX, “Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen” (“A choir of flutes and of fiddles”), Babb-Nelsen felt compelled to give voice to the hitherto silent female figure — the object of the poet’s often obsessive longing. Imagining the narrative from both the male and female perspectives, she re-envisioned the cycle not only as The Poet’s Love but also as The Lover’s story. This shift transformed the unnamed woman from object to subject, from antagonist to protagonist. Babb-Nelsen went on to compose sixteen original poems that narrate the other side of one of art song’s most enduring tragic love stories. Upon completing both the translation and the new poetic cycle, Stokloßa, VanderHart, and Babb-Nelsen travelled from Vienna to Lubbock, Texas, in 2021, where they recorded The Poet’s Love(r) at Texas Tech. The work alternates between perspectives: each of Schumann’s songs is followed by a poem from the Lover’s viewpoint. Stokloßa’s critically acclaimed tenor is complemented by VanderHart’s nuanced piano and Babb-Nelsen’s recitation of her original poetry. The resulting dialogue between male and female voices has proven particularly powerful in live performance. The work premiered at the Vienna Volksoper In March 2024 to both critical and public acclaim. Writing for Die Neue Merker, Ursula Szynkariuk observed: “With her sonorous English version, Rebecca Nelsen has not only translated this poetry into Shakespeare’s language but has also put herself in the role of Heine’s adored beloved and responded to him — so to speak, at eye level — with her own poem to each of his. In doing so, she has not only removed a certain one-sidedness of the spurned lover, who circles endlessly around his own melancholic despair, but has also told a story that was by no means an isolated fate in Heinrich Heine’s time. It was not for the sake of the ‘diamond splendor’ of a radiant wedding with a richer suitor, but because her father pursued his own plans with her marriage and her mother — like a blank sheet — did not defend her, that she had to leave her beloved poet. [...] All of this, presented without sentimentality and with the liveliest freshness, aroused bright enthusiasm among those present in this chamber music setting.” In 2025 VanderHart spearheaded a multimedia, peer-reviewed scholarly article, “Found in Translation: The Poet’s Love(r),” co-authored with Babb-Nelsen and Stokloßa, published in the Journal of Artistic Research (JAR). It is available Open Access at: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2082863/3177915 About the Creators Chanda VanderHart, PhD is a pianist, musicologist, and Lieder specialist with an international career spanning Europe, Asia, and North America. Currently a senior researcher at the University for Continuing Education Krems and at the mdw-University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, VanderHart enjoys critically examining gender and power dynamics, notably in her award-winning podcast “Too Many Frocks.” She regularly bridges scholarship and practice through interdisciplinary performances and academicartistic publications, including with Oxford, Cambridge, and Routledge presses. Rebecca Babb-Nelsen is an internationally acclaimed vocal artist based in Vienna, celebrated for roles like Violetta, Lulu, and Konstanze at venues including the Salzburg Festival, The Bavarian State Opera, the Semperoper Dresden, and the Vienna Volksoper. She is also an accomplished writer and poet whose work explores the intersections of music, text, and feminist recontextualization. A graduate of Texas Tech University in both German Literature and Vocal Performance, she completed postgraduate studies at Vienna’s mdwUniversity as a Fulbright Scholar. Eric Stoklossa, an acclaimed tenor from Dresden, has performed on many of the world’s leading stages, including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Opera Bastille, and the Wiener Festwochen. Renowned for his oratorio performances — notably Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, B-Minor-Mass, and St. John Passion — Stoklossa has appeared across Europe, North America, and Asia, including the first official performance of the St. John Passion in Shanghai. Since 2019, he has served as Professor of Voice at Texas Tech University, where he teaches voice, oratorio literature, and German diction, while continuing to perform and promote the German Lied repertoire in the United States. About this Edition The Poet’s Love(r) is presented here as alternating musical scores and poems for recitation. The accompanying artwork was generated through an AI-based visual experiment: both Heine’s texts (in translation) and Babb-Nelsen’s original poems were entered into the Dream Time Art Generator, guided by minimal historical-aesthetic prompts such as “1800s” and “painting.” The process and its implications are discussed in detail in the aforementioned article. The score, based on the 19th-century Breitkopf & Härtel edition, was encoded by Ronen Nissan and edited by VanderHart, Babb-Nelsen and Stoklossa. This edition is published under a CC-BY 4.0 license. When performing or reusing The Poet’s Love(r) in any way, whether in part or in full, please use the full citation listed in the Zenodo repository or credit the creators as follows: The Poet’s Love(r). Music by Robert Schumann (1810–1856). English translation and original poetry by Rebecca Babb-Nelsen; Artistic concept and realization by Eric Stoklossa, Chanda VanderHart, and Rebecca Babb-Nelsen; Score encoding by Ronen Nissan. The Poet’s Love(r) I I met him on a summer’s day, New life bloomed all around us. What started out as children’s play Matured, young love had found us. My smile had caught a poet’s eye, And he a love poem proffered. My maiden’s blush in my reply Accepted what he offered. II The poet stood under my window last night, Awakened me, breathless and pale, And there in the garden spoke of love’s delight To the tune of a lone nightingale. The youth held a bouquet of flowers Clenched tight in his quivering hand, And I could have listened for hours To the words of this beautiful man. V We meet in secret one last time. I carry out my plan. I give my heart, my soul, my all To my beloved man. There’s pleasure, but there’s also pain, In this, our final tryst. I feel his heart beat in my chest, He feels my heart in his. And I profess my deepest love, But cannot hide my sorrow, Because I know that this pure bliss Will die upon the ‘morrow. He holds me tight as we embrace, I fight the pain inside. If only he had means to wed, I would become his bride. VI The flower, that we planted Together on that night Grows slowly in my garden, And fills my heart with fright. I go to tell my father About the deed I’ve done. I kneel and plead for marriage To him, my only one. My father’s visage darkens. He threatens with a shout, I’ll be a ruined woman, And he will turn us out. My mother sits in silence, Declaring with her gaze That she will never help us Till the end of all her days. My lover has gone missing. For me remains one way: I must lie and I must marry Father’s choice without delay. IX I have become a stranger’s wife. I do not know his heart. He lays so heavily on me, I fear I’ll fall apart. No poetry escapes his lips, Instead a hearty snore. I curl up tight, away from him, And know myself a whore. My duty done, I can but hope, The bud that grows within Can dally ‘till her time to bloom, So he will call her kin. And I’ve betrayed my lover, Far more than that, my soul. No other choice was left for me. This grief will eat me whole. X I know not where my lover is. His heart calls out to mine. The new life quickens in my womb, And ice runs down my spine. I open up the window Of the prison I call home, And sing the lover’s ballad My true love would know alone. The melancholy melody Floats out into the gloom. I hear my life flow out of me With each note of his tune. I see him in my mind‘s eye Still overwrought with greif. I wish that I could offer him, My one true love, relief. My husband is a boorish brute, His eyes are always prying. I cannot leave his cursed house. I feel as if I’m dying. XI I am beset with anger. True love abandoned me, He knows not of the growing seed, Or how I wish to flee. But where could I, a woman, go, In this cruel fated world? I have no craft, I have no trade, I own no gold, no pearl. I heard my love has lost his mind, And wails into the distance, That he goes barefoot, seeming mad, This offers no assistance. My brilliant poet, beggar now, Has made the woods his home. A child and mother cannot live On pretty words alone. Why could he not find some small way To work, to ply a trade? It would not take so very much To keep the oaths we made. I know his heart is broken, Mine's rent beyond repair, But I do not have the luxury, To wallow in despair. XIII My husband and my lover Are not one and the same. My child will bear the face of one, And wear the other’s name. I endure my wifely duties, But escape with tight-shut eyes. There I see my lover’s visage, There I hear my lover’s sighs. How many women must like me, Trade joy for such vile lies, Survive the daily drudgery, Of marriage they despise? XIV I saw my lover in my dreams, His eyes were full of tears. His feet were perched upon a cliff, Awakening my fears. I cannot reach my lover here, I cannot call his name, I cannot tell him of his child, Or heal my lover’s pain. When I wake, I’ll see the face, That I am loathe to see. My angry, boorish husband There, staring down at me. I feel alone when next to him, My heart, an empty tomb, How I would run away from him, But for my growing womb. Yet, here in dreams, I see his face, Remember his sweet poem. I feel the ghost of his embrace, Then wake, and am alone. XV The day has come when our sweet child Will lay upon my breast. I yearn, and yet am sore afraid, My heart pounds in my chest. I fear the pain, I fear the risk, I fear she won’t survive. I feel the joy and rush of being utterly alive. This unknown land of motherhood Seems like a fairy tale. God willing, I will take her hand, And lead her through the veil. The pains set in, a stronger pain, Than I have ever known. I fight it, hoarse from screaming; I must walk this way alone. The bridge is dark and perilous With death on either side. I must not fall into the gulf, Whose jaws have opened wide. Amidst my cries of agony, A new sound cuts the gloom, And light and beauty trickle in, Her cries ring through the room. They lay her head upon my chest, And I give in to laughter. I can’t have him, but I have her, To love forever after.