COMPOSERS: Bach,Brahms,Britten,Couperin & Handel,Falla
LABELS: EMI
ALBUM TITLE: Jacqueline du Pre - The Early Recordings 1961-1965
WORKS: F major Sonata; Cello Sonata
PERFORMER: Jacqueline du Pré, William Pleeth, Stephen Kovacevich, Ernest Lush
CATALOGUE NO: 586 2362
These early broadcast examples
from Jacqueline du Pré’s all too brief
recording career are repackaged as a
tribute to her 60th anniversary. BBC
engineering in the early 1960s was
hardly state of the art, yet du Pré’s
musical magnetism almost always
transcends the grainy sound quality. If
her Bach sounds over-Romantic to ears
attuned to the more fluid articulation
favoured by present-day performers,
there’s no doubting the conviction
and instinctive musicality with which
she draws the melodic line. Likewise,
the Brahms F major Sonata, recorded
live at the 1962 Edinburgh Festival,
has a raw spontaneity and exuberance
perhaps preferable to the more
sophisticated yet mannered reading
she later gave with Daniel Barenboim.
A Couperin duet, although
stylistically anachronistic, illustrates
the extraordinary musical bond du
Pré enjoyed with her teacher William
Pleeth, while the tantalisingly brief
but strongly characterised excerpts
from the Britten Cello Sonata with a
highly responsive Stephen Kovacevich
show that du Pré was just as capable of
committing herself to contemporary
repertoire. Erik Levi
