Playing & Teaching

Masterclass: Moray Welsh on Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata first movement

By Pauline Harding2020-01-22T04:34:00

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Moray Welsh looks at the cello version of the first movement, whose successful execution requires boundless musicality, lyricism and technical finesse

The arpeggione is the Cinderella of the stringed instrument family. Fortunately the glass slipper it left behind, in the form of Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata, has remained a rare gem in the repertoire of cellists and viola players alike, both of whom are eager to claim it as their own. Indeed, the greater range and sonority of the cello and viola do more justice to the song-like character of the sublime music that Schubert in 1824 so willingly penned for this ‘test-tube’ instrument, as a commission from his arpeggione virtuoso friend Vincenz Schuster…

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