Reverie (Träumerei)

The following animation presents a formal and harmonic analysis of the piece. Comments about the analysis are presented below.

Donald Betts, piano. Recording courtesy of MusOpen. Listen to the complete work.
You can obtain the the full score of this work in Petrucci Music Library.
How to use this animation:
Next page
Previous page

Play/Stop recording
Zoom score
Click over a section letter to go to it.

Comments about the analysis

The first section is made from two four measures phrases. The second phrase is a variation of the first and they both end with a half cadence. Schumann uses a ninth (D) on the third beat of the third measure over the dominant chord:


The composer uses modal transformation of the second beat of measure 7:

The second section is also made of two phrases and is a variation of the first. The composer repeats the first phrase with some variations.