Skip to content
Schubert Sonata for Piano and Viola in A minor D 821 (Arpeggione)

G HENLE USA, INC - 2018

Schubert Sonata for Piano and Viola in A minor D 821 (Arpeggione)

Franz Schubert

Viola
Sale price$25.95
SKU: 51480612
Quantity:
Pickup available at Juilliard Store Usually ready in 4 hours

Schubert Sonata for Piano and Viola in A minor D 821 (Arpeggione)

Juilliard Store

Pickup available, usually ready in 4 hours

144 West 66th Street
New York NY 10023
United States

+12127995000
Good intentions are simply not good enough (to freely paraphrase Kurt Tucholsky): the arpeggione, a kind of hybrid instrument like a large bowed guitar, never won acceptance among musicians. This curiosity of instrumental engineering would certainly have long since been consigned to oblivion had not Franz Schubert of all people composed his A minor sonata for it. This three-movement work is now truly immortal, but at the same time presents a problem as an Urtext because the original arpeggione part cannot be performed on those instruments that most closely approximate its sound – clearly the viola or violoncello – without some interventions in the text. G. Henle Verlag solves the dilemma on the one hand by setting the arpeggione Urtext part above the original piano part (score), and on the other by clearly denoting the few necessary octave shifts in the included instrumental parts. Out of the question for the publisher was a transcription for another instrument such as the violin (as was included in Diabelli's posthumous first edition), flute, or other high melodic instrument, because these are simply too far removed from the sound Schubert had in mind. At best, a contrabass part might still work.