Arpeggione Sonata (Schubert)

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The Sonata in A minor for Arpeggione and Piano, D. 821, was written by Franz Schubert in Vienna in November 1824. The sonata is the only substantial composition for the arpeggione which remains extant today. It belongs to the same period as the Death and the Maiden Quartet, when Schubert was suffering from the advanced stages of syphilis and lapsing into increasingly frequent episodes of depression. The piece was probably commissioned by Schubert's friend Vincenz Schuster, who was a virtuoso of the arpeggione, an instrument which had been invented only the previous year. By the time the sonata was published posthumously in 1871, the enthusiasm for the novelty of the arpeggione had long vanished, together with the instrument itself. Today, the piece is heard almost exclusively in transcriptions for cello and piano or viola and piano that were arranged after that time, although versions that substitute the double bass, or the guitar for the arpeggione are also performed. Transcribers have attempted to address the problems posed by the smaller playing range of these alternative instruments, in comparison with the arpeggione, as well as the attendant modifications in articulation (4 versus 6 strings).