ABSTRACT
In a mature Schenkerian reading, a classical sonata-form recapitulation is the site not just of a 'double return' but of a triple one: tonic harmony, initial thematic material and Urlinie headnote are jointly recuperated. In his analysis of the Bach solo violin Largo Heinrich Schenker associates three 'orders' of 'motives' with the various levels of diminution of his -line Ursatz. The Urlinie-Tafel is inconsistent with the Entfaltung in its presentation of the motives of the first group also. The 'rising motive' must be Schenker's motive, the initial ascending tenth; it is their relationship to this foreground motive which 'corroborates' or 'confirms' the legitimacy of the higher-level ascending progressions depicted. And it was in this congeries of motivic thirds that Schenker, for the moment at least, had located the 'key' with which to unlock the motivic coherence of the movement.
