In honor of Franz Schubert’s birthday, I reserve the right to harp on the arpeggione.
If you’re not familiar with the arpeggione (and who is these days?), it was an instrument invented around 1823. It possessed six strings and was fretted and tuned like a guitar, but was played with a bow, like a cello.
Schubert’s “Arpeggione Sonata,” composed in 1824, didn’t see publication until 1871 – 43 years after the composer’s death in 1828. (Schubert died at the age of 31.) The only substantial work written for the instrument, Schubert’s sonata wasn’t recognized until long after the arpeggione had already slipped into obscurity. These days, Schubert’s sonata is almost always performed on the cello.
Here’s a recording that presents the piece as Schubert originally intended, with Klaus Storck playing a rare surviving specimen, an arpeggione attributed to Anton Mitteis, pupil of the instrument’s inventor, Johann Georg Stauffer. Anton Kontarsky plays a Brodmann fortepiano built in Vienna around 1810.
And here it is in concert, in the form it’s usually heard today, with cellist Mischa Maisky and pianist Martha Argerich.
However it is you prefer your “Arpeggione Sonata,” Schubert’s message transcends the medium.
Happy birthday, Franz Schubert!
