Page 193 - Alison Balsom Quiet City FULL BOOK

Jacqueline du Pré: The Complete Warner Recordings (Warner Classics)

There’s something both humbling and miraculous that a great musician’s recorded
output can be squeezed into a neat box. Most of the material in Warner Classics’
latest Jacqueline du Pré collection has been reissued before, but one suspects that
this will be its final appearance in CD format. Multiple sclerosis ended du
Pré's playing career in 1973; 50 years on, one wonders whether her stellar reputation
was justified, and whether these recordings stand up. Asking a couple of string
playing contacts and trawling through contemporary reviews suggests that she was
the real deal, one colleague explaining that “the technique was there, and she was
also herself, which these days is becoming something of a lost art.” There’s a
touching YouTube clip where violinist Pinchas Zukerman recalls working with du Pré,
describing her as “the most wonderfully instinctive musician” he’d ever met, and
suggesting that she emerged as a player fully-formed (“I think she was done before
she was born!”). Du Pré’s big, full-throated sound was frequently exaggerated by her