Schubert, Piano Sonata in E Major, D 157, III (1815)

Schubert's Piano Sonata in E Major, D 157, is in three movements, with a menuet as finale. Thinking of this in Schenkerian terms, the emphatic ^1 in phrase 1, repeated, is preliminary to the focal tone ^3 in bar 9. That note, D#5, promptly drops to an interrupted ^2 (as C#5) and the typical fifth line -- at (a) -- runs down from it to the cadence (beamed notes). The actual gesture at the cadence, however, is a rising line -- at (b); it repeats C#5, then rises by step as F#: ^5-^6-^7-^8. The two fortissimo chords that follow -- at (c) -- confirm the significance of this rising fourth, to which the falling fifth is now clearly understood as subordinate.

In the reprise (beginning at bar 49), the emphatic opening is repeated but F# in the second phrase is diverted to Fx (F-double-sharp) -- at (b) -- the result being to bring out the (already obvious) interval frame B4-F#4, shown as unfolding at (a). The Fx goes as expected to G# in the 9th bar of the reprise but then promptly relaxes back to F# two bars later -- at (c). An octave leap to F#5 enables the rising line in the cadence, and again we hear the energetic confirmation of the two fortissimo chords to end.



Overall, then, the shapes move from the ^8-^5 frame of the opening to the (expanded) upper fifth ^1-^5 and finally the upper fourth ^5-^8, as shown below.