Jacqueline Du Pre

At the age of four du Pré is said to have heard the sound of the cello on the radio and asked her mother for "one of those". She began with lessons from her mother, who composed little pieces accompanied by illustrations, before enrolling at the London Violoncello School at age five, studying with Alison Dalrymple. For her general education, du Pré was enrolled first at Commonweal Lodge, a former independent school for girls in Purley, and then at the age of eight, transferred to Croydon High School, an independent day school for girls in South Croydon. In 1956, at the age of 11, she won the Guilhermina Suggia Award, and was granted renewal of the award each year until 1961. The Suggia award paid for du Pré's tuition at the Guildhall School of Music in London, and for private lessons with the celebrated cellist William Pleeth.

Du Pré received several fellowships from music academies and honorary doctorate degrees universities for her outstanding contributions to music in general and her instrument in particular. In 1956, at the age of 11, she was the second recipient (after Rohan de Saram in 1955) of the prestigious Guilhermina Suggia Award, and remains the youngest recipient. In 1960, she won the Gold Medal of the Guildhall School of Music in London and the Queen's Prize for British musicians. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1976 New Year Honours. At the 1977 BRIT Awards, she won the award for the best classical soloist album of the past 25 years for Elgar's Cello Concerto.

In late 1958, the family moved to London, where Derek du Pré took the job of Secretary of the Institute of Cost and Works Accounting. In January 1959, du Pré was enrolled in Queen's College, where she fell behind in her schoolwork, and in December du Pré's parents withdrew her from the school. This ended du Pré's general education; she never took the GCE.

From an early age, du Pré was entering and winning local music competitions alongside her sister, flautist Hilary du Pré. In 1959 she began appearing at children's and young musicians' concerts, including with fellow students at the Guildhall end-of-term concert in March, followed by an appearance on BBC Television, playing the Lalo Cello Concerto. In May she repeated the Lalo concerto with the BBC Welsh Orchestra in Cardiff, with an additional recording of the Haydn Cello Concerto at the BBC Lime Grove Studios with the Royal Philharmonic. In 1960 du Pré won the Gold Medal of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the same year participated in a Pablo Casals masterclass in Zermatt, Switzerland. Pleeth entered her in the Queen's Prize competition for outstanding musicians under 30. The panel, chaired by Yehudi Menuhin, unanimously awarded du Pré the prize, and Menuhin subsequently invited her to play trios with him and his sister.

In March 1961, at the age of 16, du Pré made her formal début at Wigmore Hall, London. She was accompanied by Ernest Lush, and played sonatas by Handel, Brahms, Debussy and Falla, and a solo cello suite by Bach. She made her concerto début on 21 March 1962 at the Royal Festival Hall playing the Elgar Cello Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Rudolf Schwarz; repeating the Elgar at The Proms with the same orchestra on 14 August of the same year, under Sir Malcolm Sargent. In September 1962, du Pré débuted at the Edinburgh Festival with Brahms' Second Cello Sonata, followed by débuts in Berlin in September and Paris in October, playing the Schumann Cello Concerto. After the Paris début, du Pré enrolled at the Conservatoire de Paris to study for six months with Paul Tortelier, the tuition paid by her final Suggia Award stipend, although she continued to refer to Pleeth as her primary teacher.

In 1963, du Pré performed at The Proms, playing the Elgar Concerto with Sir Malcolm Sargent. Her performance of the concerto proved so popular that she returned three years in succession to perform the work. At her 3 September 1964 Prom Concert, she performed the Elgar concerto as well as the world premiere of Priaulx Rainier's Cello Concerto. Du Pré became a favourite at the Proms, returning every year until 1969.

In 1965, at age 20, du Pré recorded the Elgar Concerto for EMI with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir John Barbirolli, which brought her international recognition. This recording has become a benchmark for the work, and one which has never been out of the catalogue since its release. Du Pré also performed the Elgar with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Antal Doráti for her United States début, at Carnegie Hall on 14 May 1965. In 1966 du Pré studied in Russia with Mstislav Rostropovich, who was so impressed with his pupil that at the end of his tutorship he declared her "the only cellist of the younger generation that could equal and overtake [his] own achievement."

Du Pré met pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim in London on Christmas Eve 1966. Shortly before the Six-Day War of 1967, she cancelled all of her current engagements, flew to Jerusalem with Barenboim, where she converted to Judaism and they married at the Western Wall on 15 June after having given concerts around Israel for its troops and citizens. Barenboim and du Pré were highly regarded as a "golden couple" in the music industry during the late 1960s and early 1970s, with their extensive performing and recording collaborations being ranked as some of the finest of their time.

In 1968, at the suggestion of Ian Hunter, a composition was created by Alexander Goehr specifically for du Pré, Romanza for cello and orchestra, op.24, which she premiered at the Brighton Music Festival, with Daniel Barenboim conducting the New Philharmonia Orchestra.

In addition to those already mentioned, Du Pré performed with numerous orchestras throughout the world, including the London Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, New Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. She made her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1968 playing Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B minor with Zubin Mehta. She regularly performed with such conductors as Barbirolli, Sargent, Sir Adrian Boult, Daniel Barenboim, and Leonard Bernstein.

Du Pré primarily played on two Stradivarius cellos, one from 1673 and the Davidov Stradivarius of 1712. Both instruments were gifts from her godmother, Ismena Holland. She performed with the 1673 Stradivarius from 1961 until 1964, when she acquired the Davidov. Many of her most famous recordings were made on this instrument, including the Elgar Concerto with Barbirolli, the Robert Schumann Cello Concerto with Barenboim and the two Brahms cello sonatas. From 1969 to 1970 she (like Casals before her) played on a Francesco Goffriller cello, and in 1970 acquired a modern instrument from the Philadelphia violin maker Sergio Peresson. It was the Peresson cello that du Pré played for the remainder of her career until 1973, using it for a second, live, recording of the Elgar Concerto, and her last studio recording, of Frédéric Chopin's Cello Sonata in G minor and César Franck's Violin Sonata in A arranged for cello, in December 1971.

In 1971, du Pré's playing declined as she began to lose sensitivity in her fingers and other parts of her body. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in October 1973. Her last recording, of sonatas by Chopin and Franck (the latter originally for violin), was made in December 1971. She went on sabbatical from 1971 to 1972, and performed only rarely. She started performing again in 1973, but by then her condition had become severe. For her January tour of North America, some of the less-than-complimentary reviews were an indication that her condition had worsened except for brief moments when her playing was without noticeable problems. Her last London concerts were in February 1973, including the Elgar Concerto with Zubin Mehta and the New Philharmonia Orchestra.

Du Pré died in London on 19 October 1987 at age 42, and is buried in Golders Green Jewish Cemetery.

Writing in The Guardian, however, Hilary defended the film's depiction of events and her sister's personality, arguing that it accurately portrayed her darker side, the "MS side"; and in The New Yorker she argued that detractors simply "want to look only at the pieces of Jackie's life they [are ready to] accept". According to Hilary, "[t]he ravages of MS changed Jackie's personality. The Jackie I knew and loved died years before her actual death in 1987, but to be truthful I had to show the MS side of her". Others, such as Christopher Nupen, took a different view, holding that Jacqueline's struggle with multiple sclerosis was more complex, with long periods of sustained normality even to the very end.

In 2012, she was voted into the first Gramophone Hall of Fame.

Choreographer Cathy Marston choreographed a one-act ballet titled The Cellist, based on du Pré's life, for The Royal Ballet. The ballet premiered in 2020 at the Royal Opera House, with Lauren Cuthbertson as "The Cellist", Matthew Ball as "The Conductor" and Marcelino Sambé as "The Instrument".

On 19 February 2020 the opera 'Jacqueline' had its world premiere at the Betty Oliphant theatre in Toronto in a production by Tapestry Opera - Libretto by Royce Vavrek | Music by Luna Pearl Woolf | Dramaturgy and Direction by Michael Hidetoshi Mori. Jacqueline was performed by Marnie Breckinridge (Soprano) and the Cello was performed by Matt Haimovitz.

Jacqueline du Pré’s cellos - Tarisio

Expert Charles Beare talks about the various cellos and bows played by Jacqueline du Pre, who would have been 70 this month