Robert Schumann (1810-1856) is a German musician of the 19th century Romanticism Era. He is well-known not only as a musician, but also a composer. Among Schumann’s many masterpieces, Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 is composed of eight character pieces. Each of them has individual poetic title, and the music is full of fantasy imagination.

This thesis aims to study this set of piano works. There are five chapters in the study. The first chapter is an introduction, which describes the motivation, objectives and methods.

The second chapter explores Schumann’s background and several big events that has influenced his music style and genre of works. Regarding to Schumann’s music style, contemporary literature has deeply influenced Schumann’s works since he was entirely fascinated by it. One of the most noted features is that Schumann combined two characters that have complete opposite disposition to interpret his music inspiration. The one whose character tends to be inward is named ‘Eusebius’, while the other who is impulsive is named ‘Florestan’. Each of them has distinguishing features and plays a big role in his works.

Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 is a set of character pieces, which was a prevalent music genre at the time. Consequently, I will focus on the character pieces Schumann had composed.

The third chapter analyzes the uniqueness of Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, Op. 12, including tonality, harmony and melody structure. The fourth chapter is the analysis of musical interpretation. This chapter is for the purpose of a better interpretation while playing the unique works. The final chapter is the summary of the thesis, hoping for a deeper understanding of Schumann’s distinct music works through the thesis.