Abstract
The appearance of the pentatonic scale within a work of classical music may be represented as "marked." The recent Schubert studies since 1990s have put special emphases on such marked events which make salient appearances to form "cruxes" in particular works. This paper shows that in Schuberts vocal works composed in his "Romantic period" (c.1818〜1823) the pentatonicism, especially in its refined <<mi-sol-la>> form in a falling line, was an important resource for momentary foregrounding of the three ideal motives cherished by him in relation with the Romantic. (1) In Lazarus (1820) Schubert disseminates the various pentatonic patterns and <<mi-sol-la figure>> to each character, with the great care in order to crystallize the crux of the work: "death within a reliance on God and friendship." (2) In Der Ungluckliche (1821) this figure had been foregrounded gradually through the compositional process and finally functions as a signifier of the main theme of the Lied: "mankinds return to the self when the bonds with the heavenly world are torn asunder." (3) In Nachtviolen (1822) and Die schone Mullerin (1823) this figure is distributed to the intensified moments where "desire to unify with Nature" is expressed or achieved.
