Schumann once wrote of Schubert; "If fertility be a distinctive mark of genius, then Schubert is a genius of the highest order. Not much over thirty when he died, he wrote in such abundance that but half of his compositions have as yet been published... And what a multitude of instrumental works of every form and kind! - Trios, quartets, sonatas, rondos, dances, variations, for two and four hands, large and small, full of the strangest things, and of the rarest beauties ..."
Strange and rare indeed was the instrument for which Schubert composed his sonata in a minor. The arpeggione was a hybrid instrument with six strings, frets and tuned in fourths that resembled a guitar and was bowed like a cello. It had been invented in 1823 by Johann Georg Staufer of Vienna. Since Schubert went to the trouble of lavishing such attractive melodies on the arpeggione, he must have believed as firmly in its future as Schumann believed some years later in the ill-fated pedal piano. Schubert's sonata, written in 1824, is now the only surviving work known to have been composed for this unusual instrument.
The sonata has been transcribed for cello, viola and double bass. It is most often heard as a cello sonata but works equally well on viola and bass. The work has become popular because of its singing melodies and transcendent harmonies, simple yet powerful — a most ingenious and elegant sonata.
-- Kendall Durelle Briggs
