Traumerei (Continued - part B and A(again))

The measures following the repeat in the excerpt above and the following excerpt comprise the B part of Traumerei, the development.



Schumann has decided to put the real action in this part of the piece. His use of transposition of the melody is nothing short of genius.. He makes 4 mini-modulations out of two large ones, first to G minor, then to its relative major, Bb, and then to d minor through the VI of Bb, which is also the IV of d. The important thing to see in the development, though, is not that the piece modulates every few chords but that it very closely mimics part A, just transposed in different keys and with some more suspensions than before (see the Eb in bar 10 that resolves to a Bb in 11). When we return to F major in bar 13, the sequence proceeding that is the same dim ii - I - V - I into the next key that we see entering Bb.

Final part of the A recapitulation:



You can see that the recapitulation is the same as the beginning of the piece up until the V/V in the third to last bar. From there, Schumann plays around with the tonic and then tonicizes the ii with its dominant in order to make the ii more effective in the ii-V-I cadence at the end of the piece.