The compositional art of Clara Schumann: Perspectives on selected lieder as informed by text-to-music and music-to-text approaches

In the last two decades there has been a surge of interest in Clara Schumann's life and compositions. Scholarship regarding her lieder, however, has not been so abundant. Now that Schumann has been brought to our attention, the clear and present need is to explore her work in greater detail. I address this need by examining a selection of Schumann's lieder from two distinct approaches in lieder analysis. In the first approach, text-to-music, my analyses of three lieder of Schumann are informed by Lawrence Kramer's concept of "outdoing," as well as the concept of "artistic space." The second approach, music-to-text, examines the musical portrayal of poetic personae through tonality in three separate lieder, and, to a large extent, is viewed through Kofi Agawu's method for lieder analysis. What is revealed is that Schumann's lieder style complements the text to an astonishing level and seeks to add her own artistic imprint