The _Carnaval_ opens with a magnificent prelude. The first section of it suggests trumpeters and banners, the splendid announcement and regalia of a great fête. After this we are plunged at once into the whirr of merry-making. Schumann’s cross-accents and syncopations create a fine confusion; there is hurly-burly and din, a press of figures, measures of dance, light and tripping, an ever-onward rush, _animato_, _vivo_, _presto_! There is a splendid effect in the last section, the _presto_. The measure beat is highly syncopated. It will be observed that in the first eight measures the first notes of every other measure, which are in all dance music the strongest, are single notes. These alone keep up a semblance of order in the rhythm. By the extension of one measure to four beats, the sequence of notes is so changed that in the repetition of this first phrase the strong accent falls upon a full chord, thus greatly re-enforcing the intended _crescendo_. The next two numbers in the scene are pictures of two figures common to nearly every fair, the Pierrot and the Harlequin. The distinction between them is exquisite. In Pierrot we have the clown, now mock-mournful and pathetic, only to change in a second and startle with some abrupt antic. Harlequin, on the other hand, is nimble and quick, full of hops and leaps. At the end of the _Pierrot_, by the way, there is the chance to experiment with the pedal in overtones. The sharp _fortissimo_ dominant seventh, just before the end, will set the notes of the following chord, all but the fundamental E-flat, in vibration if the pedal is pressed down; so that the keys of this second chord need hardly to be struck but only to be pressed. And when the pedal is lifted, this second chord will be left still sounding, by reason of the sympathetic vibration which was set about in its strings by the loud chord preceding. Pierrot and Arlequin are professional functionaries at the fair. We are next introduced to a few of the visitors. There is a _Valse noble_ and then _Eusebius_. Schumann imagined within himself at least three distinct personalities of which two often play a rôle in his music. One is active and assertive. He is Florestan. The other is Eusebius, reflective and dreamy. Here, then, is Eusebius at the fair, wrapped about in a mantle of gentle musing. His page of music in the _Carnaval_ is one of the loveliest Schumann ever wrote. Elsewhere, too, the contemplative young fellow speaks always in gentlest and most appealing tones; as in the second, seventh, and fourteenth of the _Davidsbündler_ Dances, all three of which are subscribed with a letter E.