REMEMBERING JACQUELINE DU PRÉ, AN ICON OF THE CELLO

By FARAH NAYER

Jacqueline du Pré and Daniel Barenboim in the 1960s. They married in 1967. Ms. du Pré was forced to stop playing in 1973 — age 28 — because of multiple sclerosis. She died 14 years later. Credit Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images

LONDON — The British cellist Jacqueline du Pré was in her teens when she was sent to the Swiss mountain resort of Zermatt for a master class with Pablo Casals, one of the 20th century’s great cello virtuosos.

“I still have at home a photograph of her with Pablo Casals when she was 15 years old,” said the conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim, who would become Ms. du Pré’s husband and musical partner. “He signed his name underneath his picture,” Mr. Barenboim recalled. “And underneath Jacqueline, he wrote: ‘Genius.’”

 Ms. du Pré went on to become one of the world’s top cellists. Yet just over a decade after that picture was taken, she learned she had multiple sclerosis. She stopped playing in 1973 — age 28 — and died 14 years later.

On Oct. 28 and 29, Mr. Barenboim is marking the 30th anniversary of her death with two concerts at the Royal Festival Hall in London in aid of the Multiple Sclerosis Society, a British charity.

“She was not just another wonderful cellist, she was not just a wonderful musician; she was really unique,” said Mr. Barenboim. “Music was not a profession for her. Music was a way of living, a way of life.”

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Mr. Barenboim acknowledged that Ms. du Pré’s knowledge of music theory “left a bit to be desired, to be quite objective. But she more than made up for that with an extraordinary intuition and sensitivity. I have never encountered somebody like this.”

“The greatest musical joy was to play together with her,” he added. “I think we complemented each other. She had an abandon that was very contagious, and I loved it.”

The tribute concert will be performed by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, an ensemble co-founded by Mr. Barenboim. It will open with Richard Strauss’s “Don Quixote.” The cello soloist will be Kian Soltani.

“If this was the last concert I would ever play, I would die happy,” Mr. Soltani, 25, said. He remembered being overwhelmed as a teenager when he first saw a video of Ms. du Pré. “It was like I was watching some old master, although she was in this young body,” he said. “In 300 years, people will still be talking about her.”

Ms. du Pre’s legacy owes much to the fact that she grew up in the television age. Her smiling, telegenic face and passionate playing became familiar to audiences far and wide, thanks to recorded performances and documentaries.

Her uniqueness “really projected itself to the audiences. It projected itself even more so on the videos, because she had such a physical way of playing the cello,” Mr. Barenboim said. A deaf person watching them “would immediately know what a high degree of intensity there was in her,” he added.

Mr. Barenboim, center, with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in 2006. He said playing with Ms. du Pré was the ”greatest musical joy.” Credit Luis Castilla

Ms. du Pré also set an example for other British musicians. “She was like a goddess for us,” said Steven Isserlis, a renowned cellist. “She was just this force on stage, and that of course always stays with you.”

What also made her stand out was her destiny — “so tragic that it doubly fixed her in our hearts,” Mr. Isserlis said. “She’s an icon twice over.”

Ms. du Pré was born in Oxford, England, in January 1945. At the age of 4, she heard the cello on a radio program about orchestral instruments, and told her parents she would like to “have one of those.” Backed by her mother — an accomplished pianist and teacher — she began learning at age 5.

At 11, while studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, Ms. du Pré won the first of many prizes. She made her debut at Wigmore Hall in the British capital at 16. “She was already a sensation,” recalled the pianist Stephen Kovacevich, who was there. “I was just blown away.” The two later became close friends, playing and recording together………………

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