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

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.