Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, D. 821 (arr. for viola and orchestra)

Schubert wrote this sonata in November 1824 for the arpeggione, a six-string bowed guitar built the year before by the Viennese maker Johann Georg Stauffer. The instrument was already failing when the music was written and vanished within a decade; the sonata was not published until 1871, by which time nobody could play it as intended. It has survived entirely through transcription — cello and viola above all, later flute, clarinet, double bass and guitar. The viola keeps the original register close, which matters in a piece whose difficulty lies in sustaining a high singing line.