ABSTRACT
This chapter to some extent brings together various observations about some of the movements already discussed, in order to draw out new ideas about the nature and use of threefold procedures in Schubert’s instrumental music, setting these in context. The threefold presentation of Theme I in the first movement of the B@ Piano Sonata, D 960 has generated a considerable amount of analytical attention in the literature.1 Important to stress is the fact that it forms part of a cluster of instances in various of Schubert’s instrumental movements where this kind of format is applied to the themes, and which develop the model prior to its use in D 960. While, obviously, tripartite structures belong to the common currency of music through the ages, the specific use of this device in Schubert’s thematic construction constitutes a personal ‘fingerprint’. In several earlier piano sonatas Schubert experimented with this format for Theme I of their first movements, in analogous fashion to the B@ sonata. Crucial to its effect is the opening up of the theme’s tonal horizons that it provides.2
