Nº 5 de las Bachianas Brasileiras de Heitor Villa-Lobos, interpretada por
Amal Brahim Djelloul (soprano) Gautier Capuçon (cello) Orchestre Du Violon Sur Le Sable (Les films Jack Febus)
Jacqueline du Pré (1945-1987) with husband, Daniel Barenboim and the Davydov Stradivarius violoncello
Jacqueline du Pré
OBE
British cellist
Jacqueline Mary du Pré, OBE was a British cellist. At a young age,
she achieved enduring mainstream popularity – unusual for a classical
artist. Despite her short career, she is regarded as one of the greatest
cellists of all time.
Wikipedia
Most Excellent Order of the British Empire
This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s
print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996.
To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The
Times does not alter, edit or update them.
Jacqueline
du Pre, a brilliant and charismatic English cellist whose career was
cut short by multiple sclerosis, died last night in London, her concert
managers said. She was 42 years old.
Miss
du Pre, who was stricken with the disease in 1971, had a career that
lasted barely a decade. But during her prime she was recognized as one
of the world's leading cellists, and served as a role model for many
young musicians. During the late 1960's and early 1970's, Miss du Pre
and her husband, the conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim, seemed a
charmed couple. Often compared with Robert and Clara Schumann, they were
admired for their energy, musicality and youthful glamour.
Miss
du Pre's playing was characterized by an unusual mixture of elegance
and ferocity. ''Miss du Pre is a cellist in the modern vein,'' Harold C.
Schonberg wrote in The New York Times after a 1967 concert. ''There is
plenty of strength to her playing, and a good measure of romanticism
without the romantic string mannerisms of portamento (sliding from note
to note) and a fast wide vibrato. She can produce a mellow sound of
unusual size and clearly was born to play the cello.''
Miss
du Pre excelled in a wide variety of music, specializing in the sonatas
of Johannes Brahms and the concertos of Haydn, Boccherini, Schumann,
Dvorak and Saint-Saens. She had a particular affinity for English music,
and made memorable recordings of the Delius and Elgar concertos. The
Elgar was associated more closely with her than with any other cellist
since Beatrice Harrison, who died in 1965.
Raymond
Ericson, reviewing a 1965 performance of the Elgar work for The Times,
observed that ''Miss du Pre and the concerto seemed made for each other,
because her playing was so completely imbued with the romantic spirit.
Her tone was sizable and beautifully burnished. Her technique was
virtually flawless, whether she was playing the sweeping chords that
open the concerto, sustaining a ravishing pianissimo tone, or keeping
the fast repeated note figures in the scherzo going at an even pace.''
'Couldn't Feel the Strings'
The
first signs of Miss du Pre's illness appeared when she was 26 years old
and at the height of her fame. ''My hands no longer worked,'' she
recalled in 1978. ''I simply couldn't feel the strings.'' She withdrew
from concertizing for one year, then returned, to mixed reviews. The
diagnosis of multiple sclerosis followed shortly, and Miss du Pre
retired.
By
the mid-70's, Miss du Pre was virtually paralyzed. She could no longer
dress herself, nor stand unaided, nor travel without a great deal of
planning. She put all of her energies into two major activities -
teaching, whenever possible, and working for the cause of multiple
sclerosis research.
''I
had to learn to reconstruct my life,'' she said in 1978. ''But I have
found a great deal to do. I go to concerts and see my friends. And the
music is still alive in my head.''
Jacqueline
du Pre was born in Oxford, England, on Jan. 26, 1945. Her talent was
obvious from an early age, and she began cello lessons when she was 5
years old. Her early teachers included Herbert Walenn and William
Pleeth; she later studied with Paul Tortelier, Mstislav Rostropovich and
Pablo Casals. At the age of 11 she won her first competition, and she
eventually took every possible prize for cellists at the Guildhall
School of Music.
Her
career began in earnest in 1961, when she played a concert at Wigmore
Hall in London, using a 1672 Stradivarius that had been presented to her
anonymously. ''She was immediately acclaimed for her instinctive
feeling for style and breadth of understanding as well as technical
proficiency,'' Noel Goodwin wrote in the New Grove Dictionary of Music
and Musicians. When Mr. Rostropovich first heard her play, he remarked
that he had found somebody to carry on his work. Married in June 1967
Miss
du Pre met Daniel Barenboim at a party in London in 1966. ''Instead of
saying good evening,'' she later recalled, ''we sat down and played
Brahms.'' They were married in June 1967. Together, they helped begin
the South Bank Summer Musical Festival in London the following year.
Mr.
Barenboim was once asked what it was like to accompany his wife.
''Difficult,'' he replied. ''It doesn't dawn on her sometimes that we
mortals have difficulties in following her.'' In the next few years,
they performed throughout the world, both separately and as a duo.
After
her incapacitation, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, in tandem
with an organization called the Jacqueline du Pre Research Fund,
presented several benefit concerts at Carnegie Hall. Among the
participants were the violinist Pinchas Zukerman, the cellist Yo-Yo Ma,
the pianist Eugene Istomin and several others. Reviewing a 1980 concert,
John Rockwell wrote in The New York Times: ''The consistently high
quality of these particular benefits can be traced to the close
professional and social circle in which Miss du Pre and her husband
move. They know the best, and the best play at their benefits.''
In
1981, Miss du Pre's story became the subject of a Broadway play, ''Duet
for One,'' by Tom Kempinski, which starred Anne Bancroft and Max von
Sydow.
Throughout
her illness, Miss du Pre remained sanguine about the future. ''Nobody
knows if I'll ever regain mobility,'' she said in 1978. ''It could be
that next week I'll find myself walking down the road. I believe in
realistic optimism but not wishful thinking.''
