Other German Language and Literature Commons^™

A Musical Poet: Themes In The Lieder Of Robert Schumann’S Year Of Song, Mary H. Harkrader

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

My thesis will research themes of solitude, love, nature, mood or emotional states, and the duality of joy and pain in the Robert Schumann’s Lieder composed around the year 1840. This year was the year of Schumann’s marriage to his music teacher’s daughter Clara Wieck and is, consequently, the year when Robert Schumann turned to writing Lieder or songs. Lieder were a unique lyric genre created in Germany during Romantic era. These songs combined the works of great German poets of the time with the artistic expression of emotions captured by the composer. Tracing the themes in Robert Schumann’s Lieder …