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Classification Bowed string instrument | ||
The arpeggione is a six-stringed musical instrument, fretted and tuned like a guitar, but bowed like a cello, and thus similar to the bass viola da gamba. So it had another name, the guitar violoncello. The body shape of the instrument is, however, more similar to a medieval fiddle than either the guitar or the bass viol. The instrument was essentially a bass viol with a guitar-type tuning,E–A–d–g–b–e' . The arpeggione was especially suited to playing runs in 3rds, double stops and arpeggios.
It enjoyed a brief vogue, perhaps a decade, after its invention around 1823, by the Viennese instrument luthiers Johann Georg Stauffer and Peter Teufelsdorfer. The only notable piece extant for the instrument is a sonata with piano accompaniment by Franz Schubert, D.821, not published until 1871, when the arpeggione was long out of popularity. This sonata is now commonly played on the cello or viola, and many other instruments have received transcriptions as well.