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Twenty Minutes: Beethoven's Double Bass

13/07/2007

Beethoven's Double Bass

BBC Radio 3 - Twenty Minutes, Beethoven's Double Bass

How Beethoven's Choral Symphony was inspired by double bass player Domenico Dragonetti.

Bassist Rodney Slatford explores the inspiration behind the famous double bass solo in Beethoven's Choral Symphony, the great bassist Domenico Dragonetti.

At the heart of Beethoven's Choral Symphony is the famous recitative dialogue between double bass and orchestra. It's a moment that lies at the heart of the double bass player's repertoire and, according to bassist Rodney Slatford, was inspired by perhaps the greatest bass player of them all, Domenico Dragonetti.

With the help of Dragonetti's diaries and other memorabilia he has collected over the years, Rodney puts forward the case for putting a Dragonetti footnote into the story of the creation of Beethoven's masterpiece.

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