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Many theories of language say that no text has only one sense, but when two or more copy editors in a publishing house check the translation of a novel (or of an essay) there are cases in which all of them decide that the translator ought to be fired because his or her translation is unacceptable. (Eco 2001: x)
In reality, with regard to syntax, word-for-word translation completely rejects the reproduction of meaning and threatens to lead directly to incomprehensibility. Finally, it is self-evident that fidelity in rendering form makes rendering meaning more difficult. (Benjamin 1997: 161)
‘Ich will meine Seele tauchen’
from Dichterliebe, No. 5, Heinrich Heine, lyrisches Intermezzo (1823)
Ich will meine Seele tauchen
In den Kelch der Lilie hinein;
Die Lilie soll klingend hauchen
Ein Lied von der Liebsten mein.
Das Lied soll schauern und beben
Wie der Kuß von ihrem Mund,
Den sie mir einst gegeben
In wunderbar süßer Stund.
‘Oh, Let me Plunge my Heart’
translation by Hal Draper, Oxford University Press and Suhrkamp/Insel Verlag (1984)
Oh, let me plunge my heart
Deep, deep in the lily’s cup
And hear, from its inmost part,
A song for my love breathe up.
That song will tremble and quiver
Like the kiss on her red mouth-flower
That once she let me give her,
One wonderfully sweet hour.
Draper’s 1984 translation, published by Oxford University Press and Suhrkamp/Insel falls into several translation traps. Ostensibly hyperfocused on using ‘hour,’ for the rhyme in line six, Draper chose the regrettable ‘mouth-flower,’ a bizarre, unpalatable euphemism for female lips.
In addition, all female agency is erased here, through translation. Instead of the freely given kiss in Heine’s provocative text bestowed by ‘her’ [Wie der Kuß von ihrem Mund | Den sie mir einst gegeben...], in Draper’s version the kiss is something ‘she let me give her’. This is not just a semantic shift, but one which upsets the entire gender dynamic. The female figure is relegated to a passive position, and within the context of the song cycle, the relationship made yet more one-sided in the reader’s mind, betraying the original poem.
Image description: A colour photograph shows an open notebook, tablet and pencil lying on a table next to a coffee mug.
Click on https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2082863/3177979#tool-3177998 to see the image.
‘I’ll Pour my Dear Soul Like a River’ (Rebecca Babb-Nelsen 2019)
I’ll pour my dear soul like a river
In the cup of lily’s perfume
The lily should softly whisper
A song of my love’s first bloom
The song should shiver and glisten
Like a kiss from her sweet lips
Once she to me has given,
Time wonderf’ly sweet eclipsed.
Image description: A close up colour photograph shows pages of Babb-Nelsen's translation notebook. The words of a song are written in coloured pencil, in German and in English, with different colours for each language.
Click on https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2082863/3177979#tool-3177988 to see an image of the notebook.
The translation process
The process Babb-Nelsen applied to each of Heine’s sixteen poems used in Schumann’s Dichterliebe follows a pattern:
- Get a feel for the poem, do ‘word archeology’ (i.e. delve into the full meanings of antiquated words and obscure cultural references as well as contemporary and literary context required to fully comprehend the literal and figurative meaning of the poem)
- Study the musical score and identify how stressed words/syllables interact with the musical composition
- Identify key words in the poem that are the top priority for direct translation
- Analyze the rhyme scheme and attempt to fit the translation into it organically
- Analyze the poetic rhythm of the piece and identify potential pitfalls
- Begin to build a poetic framework based on keywords, rhyme scheme, and rhythm, making concessions where necessary to preserve the most important elements and intentions of the poem
- Refine
- Test the translation in practice with the singer and tweak the text where necessary; this is highly individual
Image descriptions: Three colour photographs depict the recording process. In the first Vanderhart and Stokloßa are shown reading scores and listening to a recording on headphones, in a second they are rehearsing together on a grand piano, and in the third they are sitting in a sound editing studio with recording engineer Hideki Isoda.
Click on https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2082863/3177979#tool-3177990 to see the images.
Following a series of discussions, concept planning and rehearsals in Vienna, during Thanksgiving week in November 2021 VanderHart and Stokloßa met to rehearse, then record over three days in Hemmle recital hall at Texas Tech University of Music with recording engineers Hideki Isoda and Saikat Karmakar. Babb-Nelsen joined for the latter sessions, tweaking language as needed and recording her original poems.
The following day was reserved for recording, but instead involved listening, beginning to edit and select tracks, and finally a last, recorded run-through, just for fun.
An unexpected moment
On the final day of the recording project, on 26 November 2021, after determining that they had already recorded everything they needed for the individual songs, VanderHart and Stokloßa decided to sing a full run of The Poet’s Love(r)songs. As he finished the last phrase of the final song, ‘The Old and Angry Music’, Stokloßa was overwhelmed by a wave of emotion that he could not hold back leading to a full, weeping catharsis that was unlike anything he has ever experienced before. In the video you can see the beginning and end of this catharsis, which came as such a surprise to Babb-Nelsen, who was filming, that she stopped recording as soon as she saw Stokloßa crouching on the floor. Here, Stokloßa describes the impact of this experience
Video description: Recording, Texas Tech University, 26 Nov. 2021, 2’29’’ The video depicts a recording session, the camera moves from the singer, Stokloßa to the pianist Vanderhart. It captures the emotional reaction of the singer at the end of the song.
Click on https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2082863/3177979#tool-3576080 to watch the video.
The ending of Dichterliebe is always sad and emotional, but I have never experienced an outburst of gut-wrenching feelings like this before. It was as if someone had sucked the air out of my lungs — I had trouble breathing, and then I just started crying out of nowhere. It was quite an experience, which I will never forget.
—Eric Stokloßa, Vienna 2023
The collegiate classroom as a sounding board
On 15 and 22 October 2022, VanderHart, Babb-Nelsen, and Stokloßa presented their project: The Poet’s Love(r) to two separate, day-long seminar classes, which launched the module/course ‘Voicing The Unvoiced – Liederzyklen des 19. Jahrhunderts ins 21. Jahrhundert transportiert’. The course, conceived and taught by VanderHart, Stephen Delaney, and Judith Kopecky is part of an ongoing cooperation between the Antonio Salieri Institute and the Institute for Department of Musicology and Performance Studies (IMI) under the rubric Content-Concept-Context. For an extensive summary of those lectures with direct transcription of the lecture in the form of commentary, click here. The tone of the commentary was a casual and largely extemporaneous academic discussion, and the excerpts below are taken directly from a transcript of that discussion leading to more casual banter and repetition than one would find in a traditional interview or research project.
Image description: A colour photograph documents a poster for the performance hanging in a glass frame at the Vienna Volksoper.
Click on https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2082863/3177979#tool-3515331 to see the image.
The new version was premiered at the Vienna Volksoper in March 2024 to critical acclaim:
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 poems. In doing so, she has not only removed a certain one-sidedness of the spurned lover, who circles around himself in melancholic despair, but has also told a story that was certainly not 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 in the most lively freshness, aroused bright enthusiasm among those present in the chamber music setting of the foyer’, writes Ursula Szynkariuk from Die Neue Merker. (2024: 25).
Meanwhile critic Dr. Charles E. Ritterband dubbed it ‘a very special, successful experiment that the three artists presented this evening’ (2024).