Listen to Jacqueline du Pré!

Page of the manuscript by Edward Elgar (1857-1934) for his Cello Concert, 1919. Scanned Page. Manuscript held by the Royal College of Music, London. Wikimedia Commons

Legendary cellist Jacqueline du Pré (1945-1987) once said: “Playing lifts you out of yourself into a delirious place.” Her husband, conductor Daniel Barenboim, called her a “unique musician,” explaining in an interview with the Financial Times in 2017: “She was not exactly very knowledgeable about things to do with music in a musicological or scientific way but she had an uncanny instinct and quickness of brain that was mind-boggling. She would see a piece for the first time and she was able to not just play the notes but get to the essence of it.” One of the pieces of classical music most closely associated with Jacqueline du Pré is Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85. Here is a clip of du Pré performing the first movement in 1967, with Daniel Barenboim conducting the London Philharmonic:

1st Movement of Elgar's Cello Concerto as performed by cellist Jacqueline Du Pre with Daniel Barenboim conducting the London Philharmonic in 1967.

Click here to read an interview with Royal Ballet principal dancer Marcelino Sambé, who created the part of “The Instrument” in The Cellist, Cathy Marston’s one-act ballet about Jacqueline du Pré. The Royal Ballet is performing the piece 20 October until 2 November 2023.

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