Variation 2

Poco più moto (a little more motion)
9/8 time

Brahms, Variations on a Theme by Schumann, Op. 9, Variation 2

Variation 1 ended by holding for a half note, thus preparing for the change that is to follow. Variation 2 breaks the melancholy mood and the slow pace set by the theme and first variation. The metre is new, 9/8, and the variation is marked poco più moto (a little more motion). Considerably more motion is created by the structure than poco più moto suggests. The sense of hurry is emphasized in the bass line, which plays the same notes as the bass in the Schumann original, but what takes three bars in the Schumann original is covered here in the first bar alone.

Also, instead of the steady, deliberate movement that has been the pattern up to this point, there is not only an increase in tempo but also a sense of instability created by sharp rhythmic differences between the right and left hands. The right hand is strongly syncopated with chords that are tied across the beat and across bar lines. The syncopation continues to the end, with the exception of a single bar, the climax. In the left hand the triple metre is clearly observed without syncopation in a hurried eighth-note pattern, contrasting with the right hand's longer quarter notes tied to eighth notes. In contrast to the chords of equal length in the right hand the left-hand rhythm is dotted-note. The effect of the contrasting rhythms is a sense that the right hand is not able to keep up with the hurrying left hand.

The first half of the variation (bars 1-6) are simply repeated for the second half, making it the only variation in the set that has a repeat. In Brahms manuscript the repeat is indicated with ad lib. da capo, but he later decided to print it in full, perhaps to make its appearance on the page more in line with the preceding variations.[1]

Some commentators have suggested a close similarity between this variation and Schumann's Impromptus on a Theme of Clara Wieck, Op. 5, perhaps thinking of No. 6:

Schumann, Impromptus on a Theme of Clara Wieck, Op. 5, No. 6

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1. Julian Littlewood, The Variations of Johannes Brahms, Plumbago Books, 2004, p. 262. Part os the book are available on Google Books.