Q: What the heck is an arpeggione, anyway?
A [1]: "Look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls!"
A [2]: "According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, out of which I may say I get all my material,..."
Hands up if you are old enough to recognize the source of either of those quotes!
Okay, so, the arpeggione: a kind of guitar-like instrument with 6 strings, but with a vaguely cello-shaped body, and played like a cello with a bow.
Signs of the times: look it up online, and you'll find websites devoted to it, and even a musician by the name of Nicolas Deletaille who has had an arpeggione built to his order, and now urges composers to write music for him to play on it.
He has to ask for pieces to be written for him to play because of the basic problem: there is only one piece commonly heard that was composed during the arpeggione's brief heyday in the 1820s: a sonata for arpeggione and piano by Franz Schubert commonly called -- you guessed it -- the "Arpeggione Sonata". And it's most usually played on the cello.
But, since the arpeggione has been hovering on the verge of extinction for so long, many musicians have taken that as a licence to adapt the piece for __________ (fill in name of instrument of your choice). Many years ago, James Galway created a transcription for flute and piano which was delightful -- wish I still had a copy of that RCA recording. More recently, James Campbell recorded, with the Allegri String Quartet, Brian Newbould's arrangement as a clarinet quintet, also a delight.
My current favourite, though, sticks to the tried and true expedient of the cello and piano, and adds in several more charming and relatively little-known pieces by Robert Schumann: the Five Pieces in Folk Style (Op. 102), Fantasy Pieces (Op. 73), and Adagio and Allegro (Op. 70). It's all beautifully played by Maria Kliegel, with Kristin Merscher at the piano, in a 1991 recording by Naxos records. You could find a CD copy without too much trouble, or download it from the Naxos website, www.classicsonline.com.
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