Thoughts on Jacqueline du Pre

Playing a concert recently in my old neighborhood in London brought back memories of Jackie du Pre from the late 1950's, early 1960's. She lived with her family in a flat near the BBC Headquarters, just north of Oxford Circus. Just a short walk north is the Royal Academy of Music, Regent's Park, and the now reborn and booming Marylebone High Street. I first met Jackie when I went to a meeting of The London Cello Club in Notting Hill sometime in the fall of 1959. She played a recital with her mother at the piano. Sometime later, through a friend from Yale, the violinist Jack Glatzer, I was invited to her home for Sunday supper. We ate in the kitchen, and her mother, Iris, stayed in the background and let Jackie be hostess. Afterwards, Jackie show slides of their vacation on the Isle of Jersey. I could tell that this was where she loved to be, swimming in the sea, and playing on the beach. Both her brother and sister were there,but I never met her father, who never seemed to emerge from his study. Hillary du Pre was at the RAM with me, and I saw her frequently, as her accompanist Christina Mason and I were both students of John Wills.

That summer we all went to Zermatt, Switzerland to the Pablo Casals Masterclasses. During three weeks of intensive work I was able to hear Jackie several times during her classes with Casals.Although there were individual courses in strings,voice, opera studio and chamber music with piano, everyone spent the morning with Casals as he gave lessons to a large group of cellists. My guess is that Jackie was about 15 at this time. Casals was clearly taken with her, but there were a couple of older cellists of some statue there that summer, and she was not chosen for the final concert, which was a mixture of cello, voice, opera studio, and piano. I remember her playing a Boccherini Concerto with great poise and warmth of sound. Casals signed a photograph of the two of them, putting the word "talent" over her head with an arrow pointing towards her. A charming touch from a dear man who always had kind words for everyone, but who was also tough, tough, tough.

Jackie came to hear me play, along with her mother and sister, at the Fulbright Commission on South Audley Street. I remember Christina Mason carefully turning down the pages of my Schubert Sonata in B Flat, Op.posth. She seemed starled when I said I was playing it from memory! Jack Glatzer also played the Brahms G Major Sonata with me, so it was a real reunion from Zermatt.

When I read comments about Jackie today, by all and sundry, I am always struck by my own personal thoughts about her, and the hype and fantasy scenario we have today about her life and music. Just today I read an article in The Telegraph about the current proms season, expecially about Tasmin Little playing the Elgar Violin Concerto. The writer followed with a description of Jackie playing the Elgar Cello Conerto, the work most identified with her.. then and now. He said, referring to a clip of her playing, that there was this sexual energy in her playing, and launched into a rather too personal account of her marriage to Daniel Barenboim, his many romantic adventures, leaving me with the feeling that all this was somehow contrived and out of place.Does musical depth have to be regarded as sexy these days? Its a good example of how events get warped and mangled when it comes to postmortem accounts.

I would like to say the person I knew was basically uncomplicated, very direct, and warm hearted. I saw Jackie several times over the years, and even ten years later she remembered everything, laughed over shared experiences, and showed the poise she had at a very young age. Jackie had a fundamental sweetness that was disarming, and one felt she had natural confidence. As for her playing, there was this direct to the heartstrings intensity, a God given gift, and a gift of phrasing that few attain. It all seemed so natural, and just poured forth. I never quite liked the du Pre/Baremboim Duo, as he seemed to press her too much, not allowing her the type of sympathetic accompaniments that allowed her phrasing to blossom. She played really well with the then named Stephen Bishop, but this was at the start of her career.

One has few chances in life to be around a genius. Jackie was a genius, but a very down to earth one. Life treated her cruelly, but what she gave us in her brief life was a glimpse at pure talent direct from the Gods.