Scholarship on musical borrowing has traditionally focused on surface-level phenomena such as quotation, thematic allusion, and stylistic modeling. While seminal studies have established the expressive and intertextual functions of these gestures, borrowing is still largely viewed as a foreground element, and less attention has been paid to how borrowed material can shape a works underlying tonal plan, voice-leading structure, or formal design.

To address this gap, this paper presents two case studies of quintessential nineteenth-century piano works: Schuberts Fantasy in C Major, D. 760 ("Wanderer") and the first movement of Schumanns Fantasie, Op. 17. Through a Schenkerian lens, the analyses demonstrate that musical borrowing in these works operates beneath the surface, influencing deep-level structures. In the "Wanderer" Fantasy, I argue that the chromatic ascending-third motive borrowed from the lied Der Wanderer permeates the work at multiple structural levels, mirroring the protagonists "harmonic wandering" in search of a goal. In Schumanns Op. 17, I identify a previously overlooked reference in the Im Legendenton section that functions as a structural analogy to Beethovens An die ferne Geliebte, moving beyond motivic and semantic allusion to a deeper harmonic interpolation. Together, these analyses reveal how Schubert and Schumann embedded intertextual references into their formal and tonal designs. By doing so, this paper contributes to broader analytical discussions regarding the intersection of music borrowing, voice leading, and musical semantics in the Romantic era.