Variation 5

Allegro capriccioso
2/4 time

Loud, fast, and dramatic, Variation 5 is a great contrast to Variation 4. However, it is linked to Variation 4's rhythmic accompaniment, which consisted of pairs of chords alternating between the right and left hands; they are now transformed into the predominant feature of Variation 5, no longer in an accompanying role, altered from thirds to octaves, and brought front and centre.

Variation 5 opens with a one-bar blast of rapid, forte, descending octaves, the hands alternating, in hammering pairs of staccato sixteenth notes. They give way immediately to two capricious bars, piano but at the same breathless pace, of a rising figure in the right hand, alternating with the left hand which plays the same two-note rhythm but descending. Then the forte octaves waken the dead again, this time climbing from the bass. They pause, and there is another capricious passage, this time in a higher register, four bars in length, ,still at the breakneck pace, ending quietly and sostenuto. The hammering octaves begin again, softly at first, thickening into three-note chords, extending into a full ten bars, becoming louder and louder to a fortissimo and reaching a climax in three-note chords in both hands marked sff.

The final twelve bar section, a coda, begins quietly, although with the same hammering figure, now with three- and four-note chords in the right hand. They descend two octaves, then turn around and begin an ascent. A crescendo takes them to the final climax marked fortissimo.

This variation  has taken liberties with the structure of the Schumann original, the first part being extended from eight to eleven bars, the second part to twelve bars, and the third part, after eight bars, extended with a twelve-bar coda.