Jacqeline du Pré - a celebration of her unique & enduring gift

A Christopher Nupen film
Allegro A07CND

Release date September 2007

2004 saw the issue on DVD of Jacqueline du Pré in Portrait, Christopher Nupen’s 1967 film classic. It included a 10-minute update made in 1981, when multiple sclerosis had tragically ended du Pré’s career, and also complete performances of Elgar’s Cello Concerto (with Barenboim conducting) and Beethoven’s Ghost Trio. Now, Christopher Nupen has made a sequel, Jacqueline du Pré – a Celebration. This DVD comprises two films: Who was Jacqueline du Pré, based on more recent interviews with colleagues and friends, and Remembering Jacqueline du Pré, which includes interviews with her teacher William Pleeth and a considerable amount of rehearsal and performance footage. (This second film was previously available as an EMI DVD which is now deleted.) In between there is a fifteen minute interview with du Pré filmed in 1980, and a sound-only recording of du Pré and Barenboim playing the first movement of the Brahms Cello Sonata op. 38 combined with an extensive montage of images of the two performers taken from Nupen’s archives. The film of interviews features artists including Daniel Barenboim, Pinchas Zukerman and Zubin Mehta and others with whom du Pré came into contact (e.g. the Duchess of Kent and the instrument dealer Charles Beare) recounting memories of the cellist and trying to explain the essence of her enduring magic. In less skilled hands this might have become a vacuous extended eulogy, but in fact I found it quite interesting hearing artists talk about what made another musician special to them. One of the highlights is a short sequence featuring a young Janet Baker singing Schubert’s Die Forelle. The lack of actual footage of du Pré in that film is balanced by the many clips of her playing Beethoven, Brahms and even Offenbach in the second film. She was no mean pianist either, as demonstrated by the two-minute clip of her playing Clementi. I am not sure it was wise to include the unedited interview from 1980, by which time du Pré was suffering considerably from the effects of multiple sclerosis; the interview was clearly never intended to be shown as a whole, and I found the insistence and directness of Nupen’s questions (and the cellist’s obvious discomfort in answering some of the questions) embarrassing and ultimately lacking in good taste. It is also remarkable that none of the more recent film includes interviews with her family. Taken as a whole, the DVD reinforces the traditional view of du Pré as one of the most charismatic and appealing musicians that the world has known, who gave enormous pleasure to a huge number of people. Given that she continues to penetrate hearts and minds twenty years after her death, that view is surely valid.

Anne McAlister