Structure and Variable Formal Function in Schubert’s Three-Key Expositions

Abstract

Abstract Few expositional procedures have permitted so diverse a repertoire of form-functional explanations as the three-key exposition. Ever since Felix Salzer coined the term, theorists have attempted to model these structures, particularly in relation to Schubert’s sonata-form expositions. Although authors have proposed a number of different options, no consensus has emerged, leading many theorists to equivocate when labeling these expositions. Much of this disagreement is predicated on a misunderstanding of Schubert’s three-key expositions, namely trying to shoehorn them into a two-part model of sonata-form expositions. This article proposes a new form-functional model for Schubert’s three-key expositions. I first detail the typical features of these expositions based on a corpus of all Schubertian three-key expositions. I use these norms to argue that the three-key exposition constitutes a new, three-part expositional option along with continuous and two-part expositions. My approach aligns with Salzer (1928), Hinrichsen (1988 and 1994), Kessler (1996), and Hur (1992), who contend that the second tonal area should be seen as occupying the same hierarchical level as the other two tonal areas. My model, however, differs from theirs because I do not pigeonhole the exposition into a two-part framework. Rather, I show how Schubert’s mutable treatment of the second tonal area’s harmonic stability and the third tonal area’s rhetoric necessitates a new set of formal functions. In doing so, I not only illuminate a previously unacknowledged aspect of Schubert’s practices, but I also show how the various combinations of formal functions provided him a new set of expressive possibilities.