October 27, 2025
6 pm CET
Susan Youens: Editing Erotomania at the Mid-Century Mark: Schumann’s “Geisternähe”
On July 18, 1850, Schumann composed his only setting of a text by Eligius Franz Josef Freiherr von Münch-Bellinghausen (1806-1871), whose blessedly shorter pseudonym was Friedrich Halm. He was best-known in his time as a dramatist; when Schumann attended a performance of his play Griseldis in 1838, he wrote in his diary that he was actually wringing his hands during the performance. In a letter to Clara Wieck in October, he asked her, “Do you think any woman ever loved that?” In 1850, Halm’s first poetic anthology appeared, and “Geisternähe” is included, but not under that name; rather, it is the eighth and final poem in a cycle entitled Hochzeitlieder, with the individual poems given, not names, but numbers after Heine’s model. These are not joyous wedding songs, but rather an anti-Frauenliebe und -leben, and Schumann’s omission of every poem that precedes the wedding is telling in ways simultaneously psychological, musical, poetic, and cultural.
Susan Youens, J. W. Van Gorkom Professor of Music emerita at the University of Notre Dame–has written eight books on German song, as well as over-80 scholarly articles and chapters. She is the winner of four National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships, as well as Guggenheim, National Humanities Center, and Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton fellowships. She is also an honorary member of both the American Musicological Society and the Royal Musical Society of Great Britain.
Chanda VanderHart & Rebecca Babb-Nelsen: The Poet’s Love(r): A Translational Reimagining of Schumann’s Dichterliebe
The impossibility of perfect translation is a widely acknowledged trope — we know things get lost in translation, but what can be gained through the translation of a canonical song cycle? This was the question underpinning the creation of, The Poet’s Love(r), a feminist re-imagining of Schumann’s Dichterliebe. Developed by pianist/musicologist Chanda VanderHart, poet/soprano Rebecca Nelsen, and tenor/pedagogue Erik Stoklossa, this translational experiment soon moved beyond linguistic translation, exploring the act of translation in terms of gendered re-contextualization to create new, singable English translation performed by Stoklossa as well as original spoken poetry by Nelsen that gives voice to the Heine and Schumann’s previously silent female protagonist. Drawing on theories by Walter Benjamin Umberto Eco and Hans Vermeer, we argue that translation can function as a powerful, creative act of modernization and gendered re-contextualization, and outline our own artistic-scientific journey of conceiving, creating, and reflecting on the process through performance, publication and pedagogy over the past three years.
Chanda VanderHart is a pianist, musicologist, and Lied specialist with an international performance career spanning Europe, Asia, and North America. Her (artistic) research interrogates classical music through feminist, posthumanist, and digital lenses. Currently a senior researcher at the University for Continuing Education Krems, she holds a PhD from the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. VanderHart critically examines gender and power dynamics, notably in her award-winning podcast “Too Many Frocks,” and regularly bridges scholarship and practice through interdisciplinary performances and academic publications, including publications with Oxford, Cambridge, and Routledge presses.
Rebecca Babb-Nelsen is an internationally acclaimed artist based in Vienna, celebrated for roles like Violetta, Lulu, and Konstanze at venues including the Salzburg Festival, Semperoper Dresden, and the Vienna Volksoper. She is also a passionate writer and poet whose work explores the intersection of music, text, and feminist recontextualization. A graduate of Texas Tech University with dual degrees in German Literature and Vocal Performance, she completed postgraduate studies at Vienna’s mdw University as a Fulbright Scholar.
Sharon Krebs: Married to a Rebel: Two Women Composers’ Responses to the Revolution of 1848
Whereas a considerable body of work exists on literary responses to Europe’s 1848 revolution, investigations of the musical responses to 1848 are scarce, particularly of those of women composers. This paper examines two women composers’ songs relating to the revolution: Johanna Kinkel and Josephine Lang. Both composers were married to men who were involved and invested in the revolution of 1848, and both composers’ revolutionary songs include settings of their husband’s poetry. But in spite of these similarities, there are important differences in their musical responses to the revolution. Kinkel’s responses were public—she published more revolutionary music than any other woman—whereas Lang’s were private, existing only in manuscript. Furthermore, Kinkel’s political activities grew out of a profound understanding of the issues at stake and a lifelong commitment to them, whereas Lang was more of a musical version of a Tagespoet – someone caught up in the whirlwind events of the revolution and responding to them as they happened, but demonstrating neither a true grasp of the issues nor an ongoing commitment to revolutionary ideals. Samples of the political songs of both composers will be examined with regard to the motivations for their composition as well as their performance history. Among the songs to be discussed are Lang’s “Flieg auf, o deutscher Adler” for male chorus and Kinkel’s children’s song “Von der Bürgerwache.”
Sharon Krebs, an independent scholar and soprano, holds degrees in human physiology and Germanic Studies. She has published articles on the 19th century composer Josephine Lang, and has co-authored (with Harald Krebs) the monograph Josephine Lang: Her Life and Songs (Oxford University Press, 2007). The volume includes the authors’ recordings of 30 of Lang’s Lieder. Sharon’s conference presentations have explored issues surrounding Lang’s renown and reputation, and the role of Lang’s children in furthering their mother’s musical legacy. A further research interest probes the nightingale metaphor in the 19th century, drawing parallels between depictions of nightingales in German literature and the performance aesthetics of 19th-century Lied singers. Sharon has also published on Adelbert Chamisso’s poetic cycles with a feminine voice (Frauen-Liebe und -Leben and Thränen) and on composers’ responses to those cycles.
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AGiD Session 1
an online lecture