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Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata

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and the "Super Arpeggio"
KARL GEIRINGER

N November, 1824, Franz Schubert composed a Sonata for Ar-

I peggione and Piano-Forte (D. 821). The autograph of the work
(see pi.) is rather hastily written, makes frequent use of abbreviations,
and contains a number of subsequent corrections as well as a charac-
teristic erasure.1 Yet, there are no major changes in the composition;
the manuscript is legible and unambiguous. For a long time, the
whereabouts of this autograph was unknown. After it was auctioned
off in Berlin,2 Eusebius Mandyczewski, the main editor of the old
Schubert Collected Edition, certified its authenticity in 1898, and
it was then acquired by Charles Malherbe, the famous music col-
lector in Paris, who bequeathed it to the Bibliotheque du Conserva-
toire.8 Today, it is housed in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.
This essay is an enlarged and revised version of a paper read at a meeting of
the American Musicological Society, held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1978. It also
incorporates information from an earlier article of mine: "Die Bogen-Gitarre (Schu-
berts 'Arpeggionc1)" in Scliubert-Gabe der Osterrcichischen Gitarre-Zeitschrift (Vienna,
1928). Valuable advice on technical matters was kindly provided by the guitar vir-
tuoso Turan Kamal. Dr. Otto Biba, Archivdirektor of the Gesellschaft der Musik-
freunde, Vienna, was most helpful in assembling the necessary source material. The
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, supplied a photographic reproduction of the autograph
of Schubert's Sonata. The suggestion to investigate the Arpeggione problem was made
to me long ago by the late Otto Erich Deutsch.

1 See below, p. 514.

2 See Georg Kinsky, Musikhistorisches Museum von Wilhelm Heyer in Coin,
Zupf- und Streichinstrumentc II (Leipzig, 1912), 175/2.
8 The autograph contains at the beginning on a separate page in Mandyczewski's
handwriting the remark: "Die Echtheit dieses Autographs bestfltigt E. Mandyczewski,
Wien 22. Februar 1898." Rubber stamps with "CHARLES MALHERBE" and "CON-
SERVATOIRE N*1 DE MUSIQUE PARIS" are to be found throughout the manu-
script.

513
 ,v

i
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n
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, *

First page of Autograph of Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris

 Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata 515

The Sonata remained in limbo for several decades, sharing the

fate of many highly valuable Schubert compositions. The very term
"arpeggione" was virtually unknown during the second and third
quarters of the last century. Strangely enough, various reference
books do not mention the term.4 Even the Schubert biographer
Kreissle von Hellborn was perplexed by this term and in 1865
offered the theory that the arpeggione was a small harp.5 Apparently

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he had never seen the Sonata, which clearly prescribes changes be-
tween pizzicato and arco. The earliest reference to the instrument
seems to have been made in the first edition of Grove's Dictionary
of Music and Musicians, published in 1879. Nevertheless Jacquot's
Dictionnaire des instruments de musique of 1886 still ignored its
existence.
The information contained in Grove's was obviously based on
the first publication of the Sonata in 1871. J. P. Gotthard in Vienna
printed the work from a manuscript copy preserved in the Spaun
Collection of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. Gott-
hard's edition, which contained a valuable preface that served as
the basis for all later references to the Sonata and the arpeggione,
states that "arpeggione," "guitarre-violoncell," "Bogen-guitarre," and
"guitarre d'amour" are different names for the same instrument,
which was invented in Vienna by G. Staufer in 1823. The preface
further states that the Sonata, soon after its composition, was per-
formed in public by Vincenz Schuster who also contributed a tutor
on how to play the instrument.
Although the term "arpeggione" had been generally unknown
until the publication of this preface, the other designations were
quite familiar. They referred to instruments which were quite
popular in Central Europe during the 1820s. The Allgemeine Musik-
alische Zeitung6 in Leipzig and the newly founded Ca'cilia1 in Mainz
devoted comprehensive articles to Staufer's invention, and the pub-
lishing house of Diabelli in Vienna printed Schuster's Anleitung

* Thus, for instance, Wilhelm Schneider's Historisch-Technische Beschreibung

der Musikalischen Instrumcnte (Leipzig, 1854) does not mention it. Nor is it listed
in the muiic encyclopedia* of Schilling (1835-36), Gassner (1849), Bernsdorf (1856),
Bimbach (1861), and Mendel (1874).
5 See his Franz Schubert, 2nd cd. (Vienna, 1865), pp. 325, 566, 614.
8XXV/18 (1823), col. 280.
TI (1824), 168.
516 The Musical Quarterly

zur Erlernung des . . . neu erfundenen Guitarre-Violoncells in two

editions.8
The idea of a "bowed guitar" or "guitarre-violoncell" was certain-
ly not a new one; the dividing line between bowed and plucked
instruments had always been thin and often completely ignored.
There were plucked vielles in the Middle Ages, and even today a
guitar is called a "Zupfgeige" (plucked fiddle) in Germany. On the

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other hand, there were bowed lutes during the Renaissance, and the
method of tuning the members of the viola da gamba family was
derived from that of the lute. And the pizzicato which is used in
playing bowed string instruments is likewise a result of this tradi-
tional ambiguity.
Thus it was by no means a revolutionary idea when early in the
nineteenth century a period of great invention in the field of
musical instruments French violin makers, under the leadership
of the brilliant Francois Chanot, constructed violins, violas, and
cellos which adopted the gently curving body of the guitar. The
traditional division of the instrument's body into upper, middle
and lower bouts, separated by distinctive corners, was considered
unfavorable to their sound quality and was discarded. Vienna, which
had been a center of guitar playing for some time, eagerly adopted
this idea and started to manufacture bowed guitars with six strings
that were tuned like those of a guitar in E A d g b e'. Music for
these instruments was generally notated in the treble clef, an octave
higher than it sounded, but occasionally in the bass clef without
transposition. The instrument, equipped with twenty-four fixed frets
which were eventually replaced by lines on the curved fingerboard,
was larger than a guitar, but smaller than a cello, and was held be-
tween the knees of the player. Various Viennese manufacturers such
as J. Ertl and P. Teufelsdorfer made these instruments,9 but the
main contributor was apparently J. G. Staufer.10 Their idea was
to provide new opportunities for guitar players and at the same
time to furnish to devotees of the old viola da gamba a more effi-
cient replacement for that obsolete instrument. Some instrument

8 The price of the first was 1 fl., that of the .second 1 fl. 15 x, a sign of the in-
flation rampant in Austria at that time.
9 See Mendel's Musikalisches Conversationslcxikon, art. "Guitarre d'amour"; and
AUgemeine Mudkalische Zeitung, XXV/S8, col. 626.
10 All the sources seem to agree on this fact.
 Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata 517

makers, possibly to win over a larger number of players of cellos and

gambas, no longer made their instruments according to the precepts
of Chanot, but returned to the ordinary tripartite body. Thus
"guitarre-violoncells" were simply somewhat smaller, fretted, six-
stringed cellos. The hopes of the manufacturers were only partly
fulfilled. The guitarist Vincenz Schuster11 and the cellist H. A.
Birnbach12 were two virtuosos who worked assiduously to popu-

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larize the instrument. However, most guitar players were apparently
not tempted to change to the bowed variety, and the number of
viola da gamba aficionados was very limited in the nineteenth cen-
tury. Thus, after an existence of hardly more than a decade, the
instrument disappeared from the musical scene. We are fortunate
in possessing specimens which have survived in the Leipzig, Berlin,
and Salzburg collections of ancient musical instruments.18
Apparently the only valuable outcome of this short-lived experi-
ment was the creation of Schubert's Sonata. However, we cannot
help wondering why Schubert's string instrument was given the
quite unusual name of arpeggione and not one of the current desig-
nations.
In a paper14 delivered in June, 1978, at the Schubert Congress
in Vienna, Dr. Veronika Gutmann suggested that the sound of
11 The firm of Diabclli also published a composition by Schuster, Potpourri pour
le Pianoforte et Guitarre (No. 2783). Dr. Otto Biba kindly drew my attention to a
number of concert programs preserved in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna
which show that Schuster had made a concert tour through Southern cities like Mari-
bor, Trieste, and Venice in the years 1810 and 1811. In these concerts, Schuster accom-
panied, on the guitar, the flutist Anton Heberles. We also know that the artist per-
formed around 1820 in the house of the Viennese patrician Joseph Sonnleithner. See
Rezensionen und Mitteilungen uber Theater, Musik . . . VIII/24, 374.
13 Birnbach (1782-1840) was a respected cellist who later became a guitarist.
The bowed guitar therefore attracted his special interest. He performed on the
instrument first in Vienna and then from 1826 in Berlin (See Carl Ledcbur, Ton-
kinstlerlexikon Berlins von den dltesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart [Berlin, 1860-
61]). W. Schneider (loc. cit., p. 87) even ascribes the invention of the "guitarre
d'amour" to Birnbach, a statement quickly refuted by Schilling {loc. cit.)
13 This instrument is at present preserved in Leipzig. The Berlin Instrumcnten-
museum owns as its No. 4678 an instrument attributed to Staufcr's pupil Anton Mittcis,
who was active in Vienna and Leitmeritz. Schubert's Sonata was recently recorded on
this instrument (see nn. 21 and 22). A third guitarre-violoncell was built by Roboty
Tomasza in Krakow, in 1828. It is today kept in the Salzburg Museum (No. 102).
See K. Cciringer Alte Musikinstrumente im Museum Carolino Augusteum (Leipzig,
1932), p. 21.
l* "Arpeggione Begriff oder Instrument?"
518 The Musical Quarterly

broken chords, in which single notes played one after another on

several strings (see Ex. 1) produce a kind of arpeggio effect, might
be responsible for the name used by Schubert. The argument may
have some merit, but the fact cannot be overlooked that similar
broken chords also appear with a certain regularity in the violin
and other string instrument parts of this composer. In the following
analysis, I will suggest another approach to the problem.

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Ex.1

m/26O-262

m/335-341
phi.

The arpeggione part of the Sonata contains a small number of

four- and five-part accords that are found at strategic points: at the
end of the first and last movements and at the end of the first move-
ment's exposition. It is also important to consider that Schubert
chose the key of A minor, which is particularly well suited for an
instrument with one string tuned in the tonic of A minor, two in its
dominant, and one in the subdominant.
Schubert made full use of these favorable conditions. He em-
ployed in every one of the end chords at least one open string, in
some of these chords, two, and in three chords as many as three
open strings. However, a peculiarity of these chords is that in most
cases the open strings can only be sounded if one or two strings
lying between the notes are skipped.
It is a well-known fact that in an accord of four notes played on
a bowed instrument, the individual notes can only be sounded in
 Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata 519

quick succession and not simultaneously. An arpeggio effect is thus

inevitable. But in this Sonata, Schubert takes one additional step
in the same direction: he prescribes some four- and five-part accords
which require for their realization a kind of "super arpeggio."
In Example 2, seven of the chords in question are reproduced and
analyzed. The first four chords are played pizzicato, the last three
are played arco. The empty circles represent the open strings to be

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sounded in each case; the filled black notes represent those notes
which are produced by shortening the strings with the fingers of
the left hand. The asterisks indicate the position of those open
strings located between the notes of Schubert's accord, but not to
be sounded.
Ex.2 1/7 U I/71b,72 1/72* I/72b 1/204 1/205 DI/476
tf
!

The very first chord of this group (1/7la) presents a problem

to the performer. With its use of three open strings, this G-major
chord looks deceptively simple. A difficulty arises, however, from the
fact that between the low G (to be played on the E string), and the
open string d, there is an A string which must be avoided by the
player. It would be easy for the performer to include a low B, played
on the A string, in this chord, but evidently Schubert had no such
procedure in mind. He omitted the B because he wanted to detach
the bottom note G slightly from the chord and thus achieve the
aforementioned "super arpeggio" effect.
Nothing out of the ordinary is to be observed in the C-major
chord I/71b. 15 A different situation prevails, however, in the E-
major chord I/72a. Here the interval of a full octave lies between
the lowest note and the one following in the accord. This also invites
skipping the open string A and thus producing a "super arpeggio."16
15 A strange mistake occurred in the old Schubert Collected Edition in measure
72, prima volta. Where the C-major chord from measure 71 is repeated, surprisingly
a high g* above the top note d was added. This g", the sixth note of the chord,
makes the chord unplayable, since the performer would have to sound two notes
on the same top string. Nevertheless, some of the arrangements of this Sonata adopted
the high g" and only the new Collected Edition corrected the mistake.
18 In the only autograph guitar part by Schubert that has survived, C-major and
E-major chords similar to those in the Arpeggione Sonata occur. They appear in a
Terzetto for three male voices and guitar which Schubert had written for the nameday
520 The Musical Quarterly

The player who fails to avail himself of this opportunity and per-
forms the whole chord in a higher position on the five lower strings
of the instrument, of course, loses the chance of sounding the two
open strings at the top of the chord. Most likely this would have
contradicted Schubert's intentions.
At the end of the exposition, the autograph of the Sonata re-
veals a conspicuous erasure in measure I/72b. Apparently, Schubert

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did not want to repeat the bland C-major chord for the fourth time.
(He had previously used it in mm. 71b and 72a of prima volta, and
in 72a of seconda volta.) He therefore replaced it with a dominant-
seventh chord c bb c1 e1 which, by skipping the open string d, again
allows for the use of the "super arpeggio."
Of particular interest are the final chords of the first movement
(mm. 1/204 and 1/205). The avoidance of open strings and thus the
production of "super arpeggios" seem to be here prescribed by Schu-
bert himself. In the autograph, the bass notes of the two chords,
assigned to the arpeggione, have a stem pointing downward while
the remaining three notes are attached to a stem pointing upward.
Thus Schubert clearly indicated that the two bass notes were
separated from the rest of the chord. In the E-major chord, two
strings (A and d) have to be skipped, in the A-minor chord only
the d string. Unfortunately, both the editors of the old and the new
Collected Editions of Schubert's works failed to understand the
significance of these precepts. They tied all the notes of each chord
to a single stem, thus making it very difficult for the performers to
comprehend Schubert's wishes.
In the last two measures of the finale, there is an A-major chord
(III/476) which can easily be played on five adjoining strings. Schu-
bert used it twice; once in fortissimo and immediately afterwards in
piano. The second time he prescribed even the arpeggio in the tradi-
tional manner with the help of a wavy line preceding the notes of the
chord. He wanted to prevent the player from pulling the bow too
rapidly over the strings and thus destroying the delicate effect he
had in mind for the conclusion.
of his fatheT on September 27, 1813. Interestingly enough, the note B, so conspicu-
ously absent from the accords in the Sonata, is carefully inserted in the chords
written by the sixteen-year-old composer. A new edition of the Terzetto was edited
by Karl Scheit, together with a facsimile of the autograph in the collection Gitarre
Kammermusik (Vienna, 1960). Professor Karl Trotzmiillcr of Vienna kindly drew my
attention to this publication.
 Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata 521

Since it seems obvious that Schubert included in this Sonata

several four- and five-note chords in which the bass is separated from
the rest of the notes by one or two strings which are not sounded,17
we must ask ourselves: how are these peculiar "super-arpeggios"
actually executed? Possibly the performer put a little more emphasis
on the bass note by plucking the string somewhat harder or by plac-
ing extra pressure on the bow. The respective string, which in every

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case sounds the root of the chord, would then reverberate somewhat
stronger and longer, thus partly bridging the tiny interval of time
before the next-sounding string is reached. It might also be possible
to "up-bow" the bass note, and to "down-bow" the rest of the chord.18
In any case, the "super arpeggio" is bound to provide extra empha-
sis on the chords and perhaps also slightly retard them. This would
seem quite appropriate in view of the strategic position of these
chords in Schubert's Sonata.
Considering the various kinds of arpeggio Schubert's composi-
tion favored, the name "arpeggione" for the instrument on which
the Sonata was to be played seems to be justified. That Schubert
himself invented the term seems doubtful. We have no indication
that he gave fanciful names to the instruments he composed for.
More likely, a Viennese instrument maker, eager to show his inde-
pendence from the inventions of his colleagues, was responsible for
it. The flat statement of the preface to the first edition of the Sonata
that the terms "arpeggione," "guitarre-violoncell," "Bogen-guitarre,"
and "guitarre d'amour" had identical meaning need not be taken
too literally. After all, this assertion was made almost half a century
after the composition of Schubert's Sonata, at a time when all per-
sons concerned with it were dead and when the arpeggione had
disappeared from the musical scene. We know that bowed guitars
were made in guitar or cello form, with solid frets or frets merely
drawn on the fingerboard, and that various names were given to
the new instrument. Are we not accordingly justified in assuming
that the arpeggione also differed, at least in small details, from other

17 The three-note chords in 1/145 and 1/146 were not included in our investiga-
tion. Neither chords which consist of only three notes nor chords which have merely
the length of an eighth note (in tempo Allegro moderate-) are suitable to sound a
"super-arpeggio." Since substantial stretching and reaching of a high position are
necessary to perform these chords, Schubert facilitated the technical aspect by having
each chord preceded by an eighth rest.
18 This was suggested by Professor Boris Schwarz.
522 The Musical Quarterly

types of the instrument? Perhaps its bridge and fingerboard were

constructed in such a way as to facilitate the production of arpeggios
and of the "super arpeggio" in particular.
No doubt the makers of the new instrument expected greater
achievements from it than it actually delivered. The first reports
boast of its great facility in the execution of passages in parallel
thirds and of chromatic runs 19 and Schuster's tutor repeats the same

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claim in its introduction. However, its numerous musical examples
contain no such bravura passages, and they are missing in Schubert's
Sonata. Likewise, contemporary sources state that "the tone of the
instrument is of magic beauty resembling in the high register the
sound of an oboe, in the lower one that of a bassethorn."20 This
contention can easily be put to the test since Schubert's Sonata was
recently recorded by Klaus Storck and Alfons Kontarsky.21 Mr. Storck
uses the guitar-shaped instrument of the Berlin Collection, attributed
to Staufer's pupil Anton Mitteis, a bowed guitar with a small but
pleasant sound, which would hardly qualify, however, for the en-
thusiastic designation of "magic beauty."22
The music of Schubert's Sonata is too valuable to be heard only
occasionally when a specialist has an opportunity to perform it and
when one of the rare instruments that have survived is at hand. We
are therefore justified in availing ourselves of the alternatives already
suggested by the editor of the first edition when he indicated on
the title page, "Sonate fur Arpeggione oder Violoncello," adding,
moreover, that a separate violin part was also available.28 It is obvious
that in such an arrangement the arpeggione part must be adapted to
the special requirements of instruments equipped with only four

l Sec Cdcilia, loc. cit.

2 0 " D e r K l a n g des I n j t r u m e n t e s [ist] b e z a u b e r n d schon . . . in d e r H o h e d e m
O b o e n t o n e , tieferhin d e m Bassetthorn S h n l i c h . " (Cdcilia, loc. cit.; similarly in All-
gemeine Musikalische Zeitung, loc. cit.)
21 Archive Production No. 2533 175 of 1974.
22 In the recording, the "super arpeggio" can only be heard in the final measures
of the first movement. In the pizzicato chords 1/71 and 72, the notes of the string
inttniment are covered up by the loudly played chords of the clavier so that no
technical details can be observed. Mr. Storck plays the very last arpeggio of the
sonata pizzicato, although the autograph prescribes arco.
23 T h e autograph of the Sonata is likewise accompanied by a violin part in the
hand of a copyist. Cf. H. Wirth in the new Schubert Collected Edition, VI/8, IX f.;
and O. E. Deutsch, Schubert Catalog, 2nd German ed. (Kassel, 1978), pp. 516-17.
 Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata 523

strings and tuned in fifths. A skillful editor cannot only cope with
this problem, but he might even manage to preserve some of the
flavor of Schubert's "super-arpeggio" effect.24

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** The Canadian double bass virtuoso Gary Karr has even made a successful
attempt to interpret the arpeggione part on his instrument.