Brahms, Schumann both interest me , crypto logically & definitely in recurrence of inspirational themes. The early romantic era brought grating intervals & the theatre of aggressive techniques.

During the bloody messy destruction of the Napoleonic conquests including much of the European continent, the texts both Brahms & Schumann read whilst not composing (or walking down the street) brought the era's fascination with letter cryptology into the musical sphere & was predominantly demonstrated in Schumann's The ABEGG variations.

The power of two quavers or crotchets is introduced in the opening chop and change of the few seconds of the Abegg. It shows the strength of 2 notes played in sequence. Schumanns choice to use pairs instead of triplets within the measure of a beat or the given time may illustrate how he wished the instrumentalist to play & judge his ebb & flow not in chronological military tempo (ie to match or polka) instead in a semi somnambulist performance.

The power of two is an Achilles heal for the analysis of right and wrong. Two is a crowd is a saying often avoided in conversation, bi-partisanship is the initial inertia to invoke opinion but if there is no third person to veto the left or right, up or down, positive or negative, logical or reverse logic, face about face, diagonal left diagonal right etc then no decision can democratically be reached.

Thus at any price or value its fare IMHO that Abegg is the most relaxing piece of well-tempered clavier music ever.