Schubert: Arpeggione Sonata in A Minor D 821 for Cello

Violoncello and Piano

The Arpeggione is a six-stringed instrument, fretted and tuned as a guitar is, but bowed (thus it more closely resembles the bass viola da gamba than it does the violoncello). It was invented around 1823, by the Viennese guitar maker Johann Georg Staufer, andenjoyed a brief vogue, for perhaps a decade. The present sonata is the only notable piece extant for the instrument; it is nowcommonly played on the violoncello