The Low Down Duo performs Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) - Duetto in D major iii. Allegro

Live performance by the Low Down Duo (Ismar Gomes, Cello; Matthew Baker,Double Bass) at Fullerton Friends of Music on Nov.15, 2025.

Composed in London near the end of 1824, the Duetto is one of Rossini's few
chamber music works regularly performed today. It is a light and charming
composition yet requires experienced performers.

The work was often performed in the 19th century by the double bass virtuoso Domenico Dragonetti (called "the Paganini of the double bass") and we know that Rossini was acquainted with and consulted Dragonetti on matters dealing with the instrument. Beethoven took great delight in his friend Dragonetti’s ability to play his Cello Sonata, op.5 no.2, on the double bass.

Joel Quarrington and Coenraad Bloemendal write that the Duetto "employs the typical Rossini bait-and-switch tactic of presenting a work that starts out as frivolous, though expert, entertainment, and then swerves into moments of unexpected beauty . . . its slow movement plumbs astonishing emotional depths.

Chanel, Matisse, Hermès, Warhol, Ferrari, Chateau Mouton Rothschild . . .
Rossini? An afternoon at a Sotheby’s auction revealed an original manuscript by Rossini. The priceless manuscript of Rossini’s Duet in D Major for cello and double bass was sold by the Salomons family in 1968. The Salomons had paid Rossini 50 British pounds in 1824 (equal to $1,500 U.S. dollars today) for this work of rare instrumentation because Sir David Salomons wanted to perform it himself with the famous double bassist and composer of the day, Domenico Dragonetti. That performance (in the Salomons’ home in London in 1824) was its only performance until the manuscript was sold at auction.
—Lisa Bergman