Professor Peter Yates to give solo concert on arpeggione, an instrument of unique hybrid nature
Professor of music Peter Yates rehearses for his upcoming solo recital in Powell Rotunda, in which he will be playing the arpeggione, a bowed guitar.
By Daily Bruin Staff
Nov. 12, 2010 12:25 a.m.
Its sound is haunting, but rarely heard. Its appearance is beautiful, but rarely seen.
It is an instrument that has been largely absent from the professional music scene since the early to mid-19th century. That is, until now.
Tonight, Peter Yates, an adjunct associate professor of music, who teaches guitar, will be performing music on an instrument called the arpeggione, a bowed guitar related to the viol family of instruments. The concert will be held in Powell Library’s rotunda as part of the “Music in the Rotunda” series. The performance is at 8 p.m., admission is free and seating is unreserved.
The arpeggione was invented in 1823 by Johann Stauffer before falling out of use about 10 years later.
“Music was moving in the direction of bigger orchestras, bigger halls (and) louder sound,” Yates said. “(The) more delicate, more poetical soft-voiced instrument (the arpeggione) wasn’t fitting in.”
The hybrid nature of the instrument also sets it apart from other stringed instruments. It is essentially a cross between a cello and a guitar, and both instruments are played differently. For example, guitars are held across the chest, while cellos are played upright.
“Another problem with the instrument may have been how to hold the darn thing,” Yates said.
Eventually, however, interest in bowed guitars began to increase. According to Yates, this reawakening of interest in the instrument came from two very different musical environments: the rock ‘n’ roll scene, as well as the classical music scene.
“You had rock ‘n’ rollers trying to bow their guitars and then you had cellists who played the “˜Arpeggione Sonata’ from (Franz) Schubert trying to figure out “˜What was this weird instrument?'” Yates said.
Yates began playing the bass viol in the early 1990s, and he built his first arpeggione about 10 years ago. He built the arpeggione he currently plays by combining the body of a quarter-sized cello and the neck of a guitar.
Yates is one of two people in the world who play the arpeggione professionally, the other being Nicolas Deletaille from Belgium.
“He’s very versatile,” Hugo Aguayo, a second-year graduate student of music performance, said of Yates. “It’s exciting to be his student.”
According to Kevin Nash, a fourth-year classical guitar performance student, Yates stresses in his teachings that students should be comfortable playing in a variety of different styles.
Tonight’s concert is no exception to this methodology. Yates will be playing music from a wide variety of composers and time periods. His concert set includes pieces such as “Suite for Solo Viol” by Philip Hacquart, “Prelude No. 3″ and “Prelude No. 4″ by Heitor Villa-Lobos and “Variation d’Apollon” by Igor Stravinsky.
Yates will also be playing “Crank Letters,” a four-part piece that he composed himself, which includes movements entitled “Sport Motorcycles,” “Birdstrikes,” “Endless Tales” and “Tainted Seafood.”
“(Yates) plays with a sense of humor,” Aguayo said.
Nash said that this concert is an opportunity for students to hear something new, yet familiar, at the same time.
“You get the familiar range of the guitar, but it’s nice to get the different timbre of the bowed strings,” Nash said.
The arpeggione has been a part of Yates’s life for about a decade, and he said that this concert is about sharing that part of his life with people.
“(This concert is about) sharing my journey with this instrument,” Yates said. “The exploration of its possibilities.”
