The work is meant to represent a masked ball and was inspired by Jean Paul's novel Flegeljahre [de] (The Awkward Age).
Eric Jensen [de] notes that the 11th movement is appropriately a polonaise because the novel's character Wina is Polish.
[2] The last movement starts out by quoting the theme of the traditional "Großvatertanz" (Grandfather's Dance), which was always played at the end of a wedding or similar celebration.
The composition's twelve movements are: Schumann quoted some themes from Papillons in his later work, Carnaval, Op.
Jörg Widmann quotes the first eight bars of the finale at the beginning of his third string quartet 'The Hunt':[3] This article about a classical composition is a stub.