t seems clear that Schubert gave thought to the tuning of the instrument when he chose the key of A minor. The low E (corresponding to the lowest string on the double bass) is important in the structure of the sonata. In fact, Schubert appears to have featured this note at important parts of the composition. The low E appears as an extended note before the recapitulation of the first movement and in the short bridge-phrase between the second and third movements. The low E is also the pedal in the pizzicato section before the return of the second theme in A minor during the Rondo.

As stated before, opting for solo tuning provides a few technical crutches arising from the tonic/dominant relationship between the top two strings and the resulting harmonics in the upper register. This relationship, if not discovered by Dragonetti in his compositions of solo music for the double bass tuned in fourths, rather than in the older Vienna School tuning, was at least heavily exploited by him. The same idiomatic use of the top two strings continues through Bottesini, and on into the 20th and now the 21st century. The pull toward the key of G minor (A minor in solo tuning) and the reliance on technical crutches is so great that many transcriptions have tended to migrate to that key out of habit even when there are compelling reasons for other choices.

In many cases, the correlation between the top A string of the double bass (in solo tuning) with the top A string of the cello is a hard enticement to avoid. But the fact remains that Schubert had no top A string in mind when he wrote the "Arpeggione" Sonata. The open string corresponding to the tonic was second from the bottom in the low register. All of the high A harmonics and open A strings are idiomatic to the cello, not the arpeggione; as a result, using what is idiomatic to the cello to influence our choices has turned the piece into a transcription of the arrangement for cello. Also, the gains achieved by choosing solo tuning are outweighed by the loss of the open low A and the open D above it.18 The following section provides some concrete examples of why this appears to be true.

The following example shows mm. 16-17 in both the A minor and G minor versions19, and demonstrates the reliance on upper-register harmonics in the G-minor version and the resulting impact on phrasing caused by the loss of a D string.

The original version in A minor:

Transposed to G minor:

Figure 3. A comparison of the A minor and G minor versions. In G minor, note the reliance on harmonics, particularly the high D as a technical crutch for the shift from F-sharp. Also note the awkward interval in m. 18—the E-flat and C are not on adjacent strings. The low C is often executed too short and with an unwanted accent. In the A minor version, the open D string has the advantages of smoothing the following leap, softening the end of the phrase segment, and placing a more resonant note on a chord tone of the new harmony. Arguably, the open string is in line with Schubert's intentions since the arpeggione has the same open string.

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