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Created by the pioneering Austrian luthier Johann Georg Staufer around 1825, the arpeggione - or, as it was originally coined, the "guitarre-violoncello", took elements of the guitar, cello and viol in an attepmt to make something new.
Tuned in fifths like a guitar, able to be both plucked and bowed, it enjoyed a short time in the limelight before fading into obscurity with only one surviving example of music composed during its heyday, Schubert's "Sonata in A minor for Piano and Arpeggione".
The Arpeggione
What is it?
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