Robert Schumann (1810~1856) was one of the most representative Austro-German composers during the Romantic period. His inner emotion was passionate and has a strong temperament. He was good at music criticism, and loved literature, and founded the "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik". He changed the atmosphere of the old-fashioned music at the time using the fictional "Davidsbündlertänze " to carry out the fierce irony and spicy counterattack . His music fulls of poetic, inspiring human thinking, promoting the development of romantic art and receiving the world.

This thesis takes Robert Schumann's Carnaval as the research theme, through the analysis of motivation, rhythm, melody, harmony and other aspects, to find Robert Schumann's personal creations and creative features, combined with literary ideas expressed through music.

The essay is divided into four parts, with a brief biography and discussions on various representative works from different periods. The first part demonstrates how Robert Schumann’s compositions and his life experiences are related to each other. The second part explores and discusses the compositional background of Carnaval. The third part analyzes Robert Schumann’s compositional technique on five aspects: title classification, motive, rhythm, melody,and harmony. To conclude, the last part is the my personal interpretation of the work. It is divided into twenty-one sections, discussion of struction in the first half, and discussion of performance practice in the second half. In order to do in-depth discussions of music and get closer to Schumann’s ideas when playing.