Erich Höbarth, Alexander Rudin, Aapo Häkkinen - Schubert: Piano Trio No.2; Arpeggione Sonata (2021)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 375 Mb | Total time: 79:55 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naxos | # 8.573884 | Recorded: 2019
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 375 Mb | Total time: 79:55 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naxos | # 8.573884 | Recorded: 2019
A nod toward historical authenticity is de rigueur in many kinds of performances, but performances of Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, D. 821, on the instrument for which it was written are rare indeed. The performer who wants to undertake one faces several obstacles. Few examples of the arpeggione exist; the instrument was invented in Vienna in 1823 but quickly fell out of fashion. That might have been because, with six strings (it is something like a bowed guitar), it is quite difficult to play, and Schubert's sonata is the only major work written for it. Yet the instrument has a truly lovely voice, gentle and songful in its upper register where a cellist really has to bear down. Cellist Alexander Rudin has mastered its intricacies here, and the work emerges as quite idiomatically written for its instrument, not at all as a novelty.