Schubert's Experiments with Sonata Form: Formal-Tonal Design versus Underlying Structure

Abstract

The basic idea of this article is to investigate how Schubert's experiments with sonata form—particularly his fondness for beginning the recapitulation in the subdominant—might affect interpretation of deep-level structure from a Schenkerian perspective. To explain Schenker's views and to place the discussion in a larger theoretical context, the author first considers the important distinction between aspects of musical design and tonal structure in general and then as it relates to our understanding of sonata form. Schenker considered sonata form an outgrowth of a two-part division of the structure, but the author prefers to view form as an aspect of design separate from the structure, and he contends that deviations from the classical norm, as exemplified by some of Schubert's music, are best understood with this distinction in mind.