MUS 720 Seminar in Music History Topics
This seminar is an in-depth look at Robert Schumann's song output, organized around the poets of some of his most beloved songs and song cycles: Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, Adelbert von Chamisso, and Heinrich Heine. Attention will be paid to both the poetry and the music, focusing especially on the text-music relationship and the construction of musical meaning within Schumann's Romantic aesthetic. Throughout the semester we will approach the works both through critical evaluations of the work of other scholars and through our own hands-on engagement with the poetry and music.