Description
Today’s Schubert is the beautiful Arpeggione Sonata D. 821. Written in 1824 for piano and an unusual, now obsolete, instrument called an Arpeggione. The luthier Johann Georg Stauffer invented it in Vienna in 1823 and it was a sort of cross between a cello and a guitar. Schubert was on the money here, writing for it the following year, but it fell into obscurity within a decade because it was very difficult to play and was also too quiet compared with other string instruments. Today, you will hear it played by David and Harvey in the transcription for viola and piano. Herbert Howells’ glorious piano quartet dates from 1916 and bears a dedication to his close friend, the composer Ivor Gurney and the beautiful Gloucestershire countryside. It stands as a memorial to the beauty of youth and nature both to change irrevocably in the devastating Great War.
