- "In Autumn," Allegro ma non tanto with an epigraph from Lamartine: "Feuillages jaunissants sur les gazons épars" [Yellowing foliage on patchy grass]
- "Phantoms," Allegretto scherzando with an epigraph from Hugo: "Toutes fragiles fleurs, sitôt que nées" [All fragile flowers, as soon as they are born]
- "Dreaming," Andante con molto espressione with an epigraph from Hugo: "Tu me parles du fond d'un rêve" [You talk to me from within a dream]
- "Fireflies," Allegro vivace with an epigraph from Lamartine: "Naître avec le printemps, mourir avec les roses" [To be born with spring, to die with roses]
All but no. 3 belong to the general class of scherzi, or more narrowly comic scherzos, "Mendelssohn scherzos," or even the scherzo mistereuse of theater and film music. In no. 1, the main key is F# minor. The first cadence to the parallel major includes a clearly defined V9/V whose ninth, C#5, resolves indirectly to the same note over the dominant (perhaps a 13th by the standards of some textbooks).
In no. 2, the main key is A major. The beginning of the B-section, in Db major (enharmonically C# major, or III), carries with it some not-too-faint echoes of the waltz, and those may be responsible for the ninths in the three circled V-I figures.
In the principal cadence of the B-section we find one of those climactic V9/V figures—here, forte and appassionato—that are familiar from Beach's songs and many another 19th century composition. Although the melody leaves the ninth, notice that the left hand maintains it through the bar (see the arrow).
As a postscript, here is an excerpt from Anton Rubenstein's Romanze in Eb major, op. 44n1, as edited by Arthur Foote. The design is a bit unusual: A-B-A'-C, where A' acts equally as reprise and as acceleration toward C, which in its turn is equally thematic and cadence+coda. It is of interest here because it combines the rise to a climax (bar 7) with an anti-climax (sudden drop to pp at the registral highpoint) that is a very clear major dominant ninth chord.
