Arpeggione Sonata Program Notes

Posted August 31, 2020

I. Allegro moderato - Franz Schubert, famous for three minute lieder and hour long chamber works, Schubert composed the rather normal-durationed Arpeggione Sonata in 1824 at the request of arpeggione virtuoso, Vincenz Schuster. The arpeggione, essentially a bowed guitar, went extinct soon afterwards, and so did the sonata. It was not rediscovered and published until 1871, when Breitkopf and Hartel was compiling the complete works of Schubert. A cello transcription was included and violists soon after laid their claim. The challenges of playing a piece written for a six-stringed instrument on four string instruments, have been, well, challenging the C-string community for the century and a half since. But this is not the forum for airing my grievances, especially after so much effort has gone into hiding the difficulties of this piece.

The Arpeggione Sonata has the essential Viennese quality of smiling through tears. Schubert does this with sudden key changes from major to minor, highly chromatic harmonies, and elegant textures that abide and connect it all.

A subtle musical detail that has delighted me for years, and which I encourage you to listen for, is Schubert’s use of dotted rhythms. Take the opening gesture of the piece. The second and third notes are a dotted-quarter followed by an eighth note; long - short. Now you have the idea of a dotted rhythm in your ear. In the exposition of the sonata dotted rhythms are heard only in the opening theme and one innocuously tucked away at the very end of the exposition. Schubert has laid the musical germ, and in a Beethovinian move, seizes on that innocuous dotted rhythm as the main musical ideas of the development.

The development is a schizophrenic, storm und drang, tour-de-force, that drops us back at the recapitulation as changed people. In the second theme of the recapitulation, what had once been straight eighth-notes are now dotted-eighth sixteenths. It seems like nothing, an innocent little ornament that perhaps even brightens the mood in the major key. But this is precisely what is Viennese, and that innocent detail is transformed into a doleful gesture in the coda. 

The coda is a fragmentation of the end of the first theme. What had been a simple cascade of steady eight notes is now dotted-eight sixteenths, quarters, and silences over an inexorable drum beat in the left hand of the piano. The emotional effect of the coda is, in part, created by Schubert’s careful development of dotted-rhythms throughout the movement.

II. Adagio - Pierre-Nicolas and I agree that the second movement is a song sung at night, probably in a forest, probably with a full moon, and definitely after experiencing some emotional trauma (all tropes from Schubert’s songs). What is extraordinary about this song-without-words is its structure. One would expect a set of repeating verses, verse-chorus, or A-B-A. Instead, Schubert goes in for A-B-C! The C section is a stroke of genius; it is another world which leaves linear chronos time and enters into cyclical kairos time. The A-B-C structure also ties together the three movements of the sonata into one dramatic arc. The second movement is constantly developing emotionally and moving forward from the crisis of the first movement towards the pastoral catharsis of the third movement.

III. Allegretto- Upon reaching the opening of the third movement one can all but smell the alpine meadows, hear the sheep, and see the little shepherds and shepherdesses. What we are hearing is actually a major key version of the opening melody of the first movement. The melodic contour is the same, but the key defining notes of C and F are now C# and F#. The rhythm has also undergone a development. Can you guess the development? Dotted rhythms. Everything is now lilting dotted-quarter eighths! 

The third movement is ABACBA in structure - again, a more dynamic variation of the typical rondo forms ABACA or ABACABA. The C section in the third movement nearly rivals the C section of the second movement for my affections. This is most definitely shepherd and shepherdess music which flits back and forth from playful flirtation to ardent love. The C section ends with three allusions to the first movement; a turn towards A minor, viola pizzicati, and a very explicit dotted-rhythm quote. The movement ends with another allusion. The first and last movements both conclude with an ascending gesture in the viola to a sustained high A. These ascents serve as something of a structural frame, a “once upon a time” and a “happily ever after,” if you will, but after all that has transpired the meaning of those high A’s could not be more different. The first is like a plaintive spirit rising up to God, the second is that same spirit rising up in joyful release. 

I hope this little writing will give you a greater appreciation of Schubert’s craft and heighten your enjoyment of our recording, and any other performance of the “Arpeggione” Sonata you might come across. Two recordings that we thoroughly enjoy and have spent a lot of time listening to over the years are Mstislav Rostropovich (cello) and Benjamin Britten, and Antoine Tamestit (viola) and Markus Hadulla. We do not play very much like either! 

Daniel Orsen

August, 2020