Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the innumerable people whose help and active contribution has made this book possible.

First and foremost, I wish to express my gratitude to Daniel Bar-enboim who trusted me to undertake the task, and who gave me support and encouragement in every way, initially by providing me with contacts and information, then sharing his memories of Jacqueline, granting me his fascinating insights into music and performance, and finally in reading through the manuscript, making corrections, suggestions, and giving judicious advice. He was careful never to impose himself, thereby allowing me to feel free to write about things as I saw them.

For the rest, my work has been facilitated by the generous collaboration and help of Jacqueline's many friends and colleagues - a mark of Jacqueline's own generous spirit. Only two or three people refused my request for an interview, preferring to keep their memories to themselves.

In most cases 1 was fortunate to be able to conduct interviews in person, and did so in Italy, Great Britain, the USA, Berlin and Paris. In other instances there was no choice but to do an interview by telephone. In certain cases, people submitted a written memoir or contribution in the form of written answers to my questions.

Sadly, I was denied access to the family archive, since during the period of my research Jacqueline's sister and brother, Hilary Finzi and Piers du Pre were engaged in writing their own book of family memoirs, published in October 1997. However, I wish to thank them for granting me one formal interview wrjich enabled me to check some facts about Jacqueline's early years.

I wish to thank most warmly those musicians who knew and played with Jacqueline du Pre and who shared their memories with me: Vladimir Ashkenazy, Quin Ballardie, Harry Blech, Pierre Boulez, Ana Chumachenko, Maggie Cowan, Lamar Crowson, Diana Cummings, Herbert Dowries, Lawrence Foster, Rodney Friend, Jose Luis Garcia, Richard Goode, Antony Hopkins, Stephen Kovacevich, Anita Lasker, Alberto Lysy, Oscar Lysy, Hugh Maguire, George Malcolm, Zubin Mehta, Yehudi Menuhin, Joanna Milholland, Itzhak Perlman, Arnold Steinhardt, Peter Thomas, Fou Ts'ong, John Williams, and Pinchas Zukerman.

My deep gratitude to Jacqueline's teachers: principally to William Pleeth, also to Mstislav Rostropovich.

Cellists are wonderful colleagues, and I wish to thank the following whose eagerness to help me in this project was undoubtedly a reflection of their enduring love and high esteem for Jacqueline du Pre: Sandy Bailey, Lowri Blake, Ottomar Borwitsky, Robert Cohen, the late Joan Dickson, David Geringas, Karine Georgian, Natalia Gutman, Andrea Hess, Tim Hugh, Stephen Isserlis, Ralph Kirshbaum, Misha Maisky, Boris Pergamenshchikov, Melissa Phelps, Anna Shutdcworth, Raphael Sommer, Jeanine Tetard, Maud Manin-Tortelier, Gill Thoday, Jenny Ward-Clarke, Moray Welsh, and Yo-Yo Ma.

I wish also to thank Jacqueline's many friends and acquaintances who agreed to talk to me and share their reminiscences: John Amis, Peter Andry, Lady Barbirolli, Clive and Rosie Barda, Charles Beare, Kate Beare, Y. Beinisch, Zamira Benthall, Susan Bradshaw, Alison Brown, Joanna David, Jeremy Dale-Roberts, the late Peter Diamand, Madeleine Dinkel, Howard Ferguson, Rabbi Albert Friedlander, Cynthia Friend, Lady Groves, Suvi Grubb, Penelope Lee, Guthrie Luke, Lotte Klemperer, Teddy Kollek, Susie Maguire, Christopher Nupen, Jan Pleeth, Oleg Prokofiev, Diana Rix, Stuart Robinson, Jill Severs, Jeremy Siepman, Clive Smart, Sonia Sommerville, Sylvia Southcombe, Ursula Strebi, Sir lan and Lady Stoutzker, Mona Thomas, Mrs Jeremy Thorpe, Charles Wadsworth, Eleanor Warren, James and Elaine Wol-fenssohn, and Eugenia Zukerman.

I would further like to thank:

(i) Jacqueline's agents at different times and in different pans of the world: Hans Adler, Terry Harrison, Sir Ian Hunter, Harold Shaw, and the late Wilfrid Stiff. In particular I was given invaluable help by Diana Rix, who allowed me to consult the Harold Holt office files and diaries. 1 would also particularly like to thank the Tillett Trust for allowing me access to their archives.

(ii) Jacqueline's doctors Dr Len Selby and Dr Leo Lange, the late Dr Adam Limentani, and her nurse Ruth Ann Cannings.

Acknowledgements

access to archives, proving to have far more persistence that I did. I am most grateful to my editor Elsbeth Lindner for all her comments, suggestions and corrections. I would also like to thank all those at Weidcnfcld & Nicolson who helped bring this book into being, in particular Ion Trewin and Ian Pindar.

I was sustained throughout my task by the patience and support of my family and friends. I thank them all, but particularly Catherine Wilson, Francesco Candido and Christine Anderson, all of whom read the manuscript through and made many useful suggestions and comments. I would also like to thank Ann Wilson and Eilis Cranitch for their help.

Finally my apologies to any person whom I may have inadvertently overlooked while attempting to recall and record the enormous amount of help I have received from so many people all over the world.

Preface

The idea of this book had its genesis in the months after Jacqueline du Pre's death. It was following the Memorial Thanksgiving Concert at Westminster Hall given in January 1988 by her husband Daniel Barenboim and many other musicians who had been du Pre's close associates that Daniel asked me if I would be prepared to write Jackie's biography. I was very touched that he should think of me, but my immediate reaction was to refuse. I did not feel up to the task and had as yet little experience of writing. But Daniel encouraged me to give his proposal unhurried consideration. From his point of view my qualifications to write about Jackie were that I was a cellist and had known and heard her in her playing days - I first met her in 1965. He generously added that I had his trust and that I had always had Jackie's. It was this last phrase of Barenboim's which gave me the strength to accept the challenge and start work some five years later.

Jacqueline du Pre was a much-loved figure. During her lifetime she was feted in the press, first for her incomparable artistry, and later for her courage and fortitude in the face of terrible affliction. Since her death in October 1987 interest in her has not abated: two biographies have appeared, as well as articles, plays based on her life, a further documentary film, let alone a projected feature film based on her sister's and brother's recent book of memoirs. More importantly her memory has been sustained by the discovery of further recordings, allowing EM I to issue as a fiftieth-birthday tribute du Pre's versions of the Lalo Cello Concerto and Richard Strauss's Don Quixote.

Unravelling the reality from the legend is a particularly hard job in the case of Jacqueline du Pre. Over the last ten years, the mythical aura around her name has not dimmed. The story of a young woman endowed with extraordinary gifts and then cruelly cut down in her prime retains the force of Greek Tragedy, imposing the idea of an almost pre-ordained destiny. So much so, that fiction seems to invad name evokes eulogies and laments. One might well ask if there is any need for more to be written about her.

Yet it seemed to me that no book has as yet seriously examined Jacqueline du Pre s considerable musical achievement. Neither have the sources of her talent or the influences that she exerted on musicians and cellists ever been systematically studied. As those who knew her will testify, Jackie herself was very modest about the extent of her achievements. While researching this biography I was continually surprised to learn of the scope of her activity. She packed so much music-making into a very short time, and had a far wider range of repertoire and musical knowledge than she is usually credited with.

Although the music-making is the main theme of this book, in Jackie's case it is well nigh impossible to separate music from her personal life. Her artistry was unified with her personality to an unusual extent, and, until illness imposed silence on her music-making, speaking through the cello was her preferred means of communication.

Having enjoyed a friendship with Jackie for more than twenty years gave me certain advantages as a biographer. But it was nevertheless easy to allow my memories to be clouded by hindsight. Sometimes I had to - at least temporarily - lay aside my personal feelings and judgements, in order to give an objective viewpoint. It was important initially to disassociate myself from the harrowing images of Jackie's final illness, so as to recapture the feeling of exhilarating adventure that was so much part of her youthful personality. In all 1 have tried to take a fresh stance so as to re-establish Jackie's experiences and feelings in relation to the time she lived through them and to supply the context and background of her accomplishments.

It has been an enormous pleasure whilst researching the book to have the opportunity to talk and reminisce about Jackie with so many people. Yet I have found still greater pleasure from immersing myself in du Pre's recordings, and living closely with her marvellous artistry. Apart from the issued recordings, I was lucky to discover several concert performances preserved in radio archives around the world. In Great Britain, we are fortunate in having the National Sound Archive in Exhibition Road, London, which has a splendid collection of radio tapes, extremely helpful staff and good listening facilities available to the general public.

The recordings are undoubtedly the most valuable and lasting of

Jacqueline du Pres legacy. We arc well served by EMI s catalogue of audio recordings and Christopher Nupens documentary films, which are available on video.

I have decided not to include a discography for two main reasons. First, because I have dealt in detail with most of the recordings in the text. Secondly, catalogue numbers of commercially recorded discs tend to quickly go out of date, as re-issues and new couplings are released and others withdrawn. But readers who wish to further their enjoyment of du Pres artistry will find that all of the EMI recordings discussed are today available on CD. There is no reason to believe that this situation will change, as du Pres unique qualities will continue to appeal to a new generation of music lovers. The only EM I recorded works which are currendy unavailable are Beethoven's clarinet Trio Op. and the Piano Trio in E flat WoO 38, which were omitted when the complete Barenboim/Zukerman/du Pre Beethoven Trios were reissued on CD.

Being that rare bird, a magnificent British string-player, it was natural that du Pres performances were frequendy recorded by the BBC. Indeed, she started her recording career in the Radio 3 studios. Throughout her playing career her concerts were often transmitted directly (not only in Britain, but in other countries). Disappointingly, the tapes of many of these radio broadcasts are not to be found in the radio archives, some seem to have been lost altogether. In certain cases they have been preserved by chance as non professional tapes recorded off the air; often these are of scarce quality.

Enthusiasts of du Pres playing can further their pleasure by making an appointment at the National Sound Archive, where many of the BBC radio recordings mentioned in the text are available to listen to. These include such rarities as a 1962 studio recording of Jacques Ibert's Concerto for Cello and Winds, the Schumann Cello concerto with Torteliers cadenza from a concert in December 1962, Priaulx Rainiers Concerto from the 1964 Proms, as well as several concert performances of the Elgar Concerto - the earliest with Norman Del Mar from a performance in October 1962.

In addition to EMI's catalogue, there are two further CDs on the market: the 1970 version of the Elgar Concerto from a concert in Philadelphia issued by CBS, the 1979 recording of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf with du Pre as narrator issued by Deutsche Grammophon. In addition, in some countries du Pres performance of Alexander Goehr's Romanza from a concert in October 1968 is available on CD on the Intaglio label.

Du Pre, although remembered chiefly as a musician, left a further legacy in her concern to help the cause of research. During her lifetime, through her compassion, her humour and her enormous dignity, she held out a beacon of hope to sufferers of chronic illness and multiple sclerosis in particular. Her name and influence live on in various Trusts and Institutions.

The first of these, the Jacqueline du Pre Research Fund of the IFMSS (International Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Societies), was rounded with Jacqueline s participation in 1979 by Daniel Barenboim and James Wolfensohn. Encouraged by Barenboims unstinting generosity and example, the concerts given by star performers in support of the Fund over the ensuing years have ensured its high profile. In April 1987, just a few months before du Pres death, the IFMSS set up the Du Pre Fellowship which provides an annual award of $, for the training of a research worker. Although Jackie realised that she would never benefit from the findings of research, it meant something to her to know that the use of her name might contribute to the relief of other MS patients.

Shortly after her death, the Jacqueline du Pre Memorial Award was founded to finance a young cellist in a course of study, to help towards the purchase of an instrument or to fund a concert. The first award was made in 1988. In November 1988 the Jacqueline du Pre Memorial Fund was launched in London with a double purpose. The proceeds were to be divided between the Appeal Fund for the construction of the new concert hall complex at St Hilda's, Oxford, and a Trust administered by the Musicians Benevolent Fund, whose aim was to help musicians suffering from degenerative and chronic diseases stay in their own homes as long as possible and finance beds in nursing homes. The Memorial Fund achieved both aims, having collected donations nearing a total of just under 3 million.

Thus, the most tangible monument to du Pres influence exists in the new Jacqueline du Pre Music Building by St Hildas College which was opened in September 1995. from a concert hall seating 200 people, it incorporates practice rooms and rehearsal halls, and provides recording facilities. The project was conceived in 1985, shortly after du Pre had been elected Fellow of St Hildas College, and she was able to give it her approval and blessing.

The Birth of Talent

'The musical talent may well show itself earliest of any; for music is something innate and internal, which needs little nourishment from without, andI no experience drawn from life/

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe"

The phenomenon of a child prodigy is always a source of wonder. It is impossible to explain the extraordinary childhood abilities of a genius such as Mozart without speculating (as did Goethe) that his talent was divinely invested. In Mozart's case, the early gift proved to be the precursor of the inspired works of his maturity. But too often we are dazzled by a precocious outward display of virtuosity; when the prodigy grows up, he disappoints our early hopes. A young musician is only likely to attain a great destiny if his creative gift is welded to an unerring intuition and is enriched by a capacity for profound emotion.

The violinist Yehudi Menuhin, whose gifts were apparent at a very early age, described the strange imbalance between the prodigy's inner world of passion and restricted life experience: 'I was a child, I knew so much, I felt so many emotions, but I had never made their acquaintance! I felt the tragedy in life, I felt abandon, exuberance, exaltation, but hadn't met these feelings in the outer world." Menuhin, speaking with the wisdom of hindsight, saw this emotional precociousness almost as a limitation of his early performances. His development as an artist meant connecting these intuited emotions with real-life experiences, a difficult process of catching up with oneself in adolescence.

Jacqueline du Pre only began to perform publicly at the age of sixteen - a late start in comparison with most prodigies. Nevertheless, her musical genius was evident at a very early age and its special nature was defined by her rich emotional inner world, rather than her precocious virtuosity. Her mother, Iris du Pre, recalled that when the

" Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe, entry for 14 February 1831.

four-year-old Jackie was first given a cello to play - it was a full-sized 'whopper - she exclaimed in delight, 'Oh Mummy, I do so love my cello.' Iris recalled her astonishment at 'the enormous wealth of feeling'1 behind these childish words, which prompted her to foresee for her daughter a lifelong commitment to music and the cello. It is to Iris's credit that, while instantly recognising Jackie's special gifts, she saw to it that they were protected, carefully nurtured and only gradually exposed to the light.

Indeed, du Pres relatively late appearance on the concert scene was partly due to an accident of birth. The English have always shown considerable distaste for pushing a very young musician into the public arena. In contrast to Menuhin's successful concert career as a child, the English pianist and harpsichordist George Malcolm remembers that he was deliberately held back from performing. While his parents and teachers recognised his musical potential at a very young age, they had no wish to imitate what they saw as the flagrant child exploitation of the boy Mcnuhin, his exact contemporary.5

This aversion of the English to exhibitionist display was at odds with the European tradition of stimulating performing talent at an early age. As Iris du Pre enjoyed recounting, it was probably for this reason that the veteran cellist Pablo Casals assumed that the fifteen-year-old girl who had just given an extraordinarily vital performance of the Saint-Saens A minor Cello Concerto at his Zcrmatt master class could not be English.

'Oh, but I am,' she told him when challenged. 'But what is your name?' - Surely no English person could display such intense feeling and uninhibited passion in their music-making. 'Jacqueline du Pre.*

Casals just roared with laughter, convinced that he had proved his point.4

The name du Pre, however, derives from the Channel Islands, which had links with England from the middle of the eleventh century when they separated from Normandy. Although geographically closer to France - and indeed, until relatively recendy predominandy French-speaking the Channel Islands looked to England politically and culturally. Jackie used to take pride in saying that her father, Derek du Pre had never left the island of Jersey before the age of twenty, and when he did depart he was the first of many generations to do so. Like so many family legends, this was not strictly speaking true, as he was born in Portsmouth and spent some of his childhood holidays in England. But for all that, Derek du Pre considered himself a Jersey man and transmitted to his daughter something of an islanders proud> independent spirit.

Jacqueline's musical talent was inherited through the maternal line. Her mother, Iris Greep was a professional pianist who, in other circumstances, might have become a soloist in her own right. But more important, she possessed a remarkable gift as a children's music teacher and she had the sensitivity to recognise the unique nature of Jackie's talent - namely the deeply felt inner passion which illuminated her attitude to music from the earliest age, whether it was in her lisping of nursery rhymes, or singing of Christmas carols, or in her immediate identification with the sound of the cello.

Born in 1914, Iris Greep came from a humble Devon family. Her father, William Greep, was a ships joiner in the Devonport dockyard and his musical activities were limited to singing in music-hall productions. Her mother, Maud Greep (nee Mitchell), realised that Iris was exceptionally bright and bought her seven-year-old daughter a piano as a means of stimulating her outside school. Iris proved to have real musical talent and was soon winning prizes at local music festivals. Later she won a scholarship to Devonport High School where, from doing well academically, she enjoyed extra-scholastic activities such as swimming and drama. In the meantime she was making such remarkable progress on the piano that a year before leaving school she went to London to take her performing diploma. Iris made a good impression on the adjudicators at the Royal Academy of Music (two of them would become her teachers), gained her LRAM and returned home determined to become a professional musician. The following year, at the age of eighteen, she applied for a place at the London School of Dalcroze Eurhythmies. Through winning a scholarship, Iris now had the financial means to leave home.

Established in 1913 by Percy Ingham, the London School of Eurhythmies was closely associated with Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, who had created his method with the aim of basing musical education on rhythm as a means of expression, whereby the co-ordination of bodily movement and music help to fuse the integration of body and mind. Although his system was originally conceived for musicians, Dalcroze stated that 'its chief value lies in the fact that it trains the powers of perception and of expression in the individual and renders easier the externa]isation of natural emotions'.

The Dalcroze method became a way of life for its practitioners. As Bernard Shaw put it, Dalcrozians 'walk to music, play to music, think to music, obey drill commands that would bewilder a guardsman to music, live to music, get so clear-headed about music that they can move their several limbs each in a different metre until they become living magazines of cross-rhythms and, what is more, make music for others to do all these things*.5

Apart from the evident importance of Dalcrozes system in children's education, it had an enormous influence in its day on dancers and actors, and was incorporated into theatre and dance by such diverse figures as Greville Barker, Isadora Duncan and Marie Rambert. Rambcrt in turn used a synthesis of Dalcrozian eurhythmies and classical ballet in her work with the Diaghilev company, and specifically helped Nijinsky to choreograph the rhythmically complex score of Stravinsky's Sucre du printemps.

Hence, when Iris Greep gained the certificate from the London School of Eurhythmies in 1935, she had become a committed Dalcrozian and remained involved with the method for the rest of her life. She was listed as an outside lecturer of the Dalcroze Society's Training Centre from 1949 until 1963 and in 1953 was elected to a commission, headed by Ernest Read, responsible for amending the syllabus of the Training Centre.

A year before she acquired the Dalcroze certificate Iris enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music as a first-study pianist with Eric Grant. Initially she chose viola as her second study, but very soon she had abandoned this instrument for composition and harmony lessons with Theodore Holland.

From 1935 onwards her fees were largely met by scholarships - she was the recipient of the Bach and Beethoven Scholarship and the William Stokes Bursary, and during the following four years she won a number of prizes for harmony, composition and piano. Additionally she supported herself through teaching piano and eurhythmies.

Iris gained her ARCM certificate in 1937, but she continued her studies until the outbreak of the war, while starting to play and teach professionally. Eric Grant had a high enough opinion of her to nominate her as his deputy and in 1940 she was appointed sub-professor of harmony at the RAM.

While in London, Iris lodged with Mary May, a fellow Dalcrozian, who described her then as 'about five foot seven tall, broad-shouldered and sturdy, good-looking with auburn hair'. Mary grew very fond of Iris and through her mother provided her with important contacts, including a wealthy patroness of the Arts, Violet Becker, who financed her London debut recital. Marys mother also introduced her to the German concert pianist Egon Petri.

According to Mary, Iris appeared to be entirely unversed in the art of living. She never knew that if you opened a door you should close it. Once I found the bath water coming down the stairs - we had to teach her about living in a house/ She found Iris's parents to be simple but warm-hearted - her father once attended a party at the house, but he was a 'shy man who felt quite out of place in London.6

If Iris had arrived in London with few social graces, she quickly learnt to adapt to new situations and to appreciate the novelties and excitement of city life. Here she was especially fortunate in having teachers who not only transmitted professional skills, but also watched over the overall development of their students' personalities.

Iris's piano teacher Erie Grant was a highly civilised musician, if somewhat academic in his approach. His pupils remember that he was not interested in virtuosity for its own sake, rather he instilled deeply felt musical values - although some claimed that he did so at the expense of their technique. But Grant was as intent on enlarging his students' cultural horizons as training their fingers. Urbane, witty and with an eye for the girls, he enjoyed introducing his pupils to life outside the walls of the Academy, taking them to concerts at the Queens Hall and acquainting them with the gastronomic delights of Soho. Not surprisingly, they were devoted to him.

Theodore Holland was likewise a teacher whose influence extended far beyond the walls of the teaching room. As a young man he had studied composition and violin at the Royal Academy of Music in London, then at the Berlin Hochschule, where his teacher, Joachim, did much to influence Hollands musical tastes. In 1927 Holland was appointed Professor at the Royal Academy of Music. A man of great dignity, he gained considerable prestige in London's musical circles, becoming a member of the Royal Philharmonic Society and of other public bodies.

Holland's music, light, well-crafted and full of idiosyncratic charm, had its day in the pre-war years when his vaudeville-like stage works