JACQUELINE DU PRE: 5 LEGENDARY RECORDINGS (5 VINYL LPS) WARNER CLASSICS

‘She clearly was born to play the cello,’ wrote the New York Times of Jacqueline du Pré in 1967. Just five years later her career was cut tragically short by illness. Providing a treasurable memento of her art, this is a newly-assembled 5 LP collection of masterworks for cello and orchestra from three centuries. It includes the Elgar Concerto, so closely associated with du Pré, and a 1968 recording of Strauss’s Don Quixote which, after a complex genesis, was not released until 1995, the height of the CD era. Now, it makes it’s first appearance on LP. In each work, the cellist provides evidence of what her teacher, William Pleeth, described as the ‘perfect balance of youth and maturity.’ Jacqueline du Pré, performing with the two conductors most closely associated with her career, brings characteristic exuberance, passion and colour to three cello concertos rooted in the 18th century. In his memoir A Life In Music, Daniel Barenboim wrote: “I have never encountered anyone for whom music was such a natural form of expression as it was for Jacqueline… She had a capacity to imagine sound such as I never met in any other musician.”

Haydn: Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major, Hob. VIIb:1
Jacqueline du Pré (cello)
English Chamber Orchestra
Daniel Barenboim

Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85
Jacqueline du Pré (cello)
London Symphony Orchestra
Sir John Barbirolli

Elgar: Sea Pictures, Op. 37
Janet Baker (mezzo), Jacqueline du Pré (cello)
London Symphony Orchestra
Sir John Barbirolli

Boccherini: Cello Concerto No. 9 in B flat major, G482
Jacqueline du Pré (cello)
English Chamber Orchestra
Daniel Barenboim

Schumann: Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129
Jacqueline du Pré (cello)
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Daniel Barenboim

Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 1, Op. 33
Jacqueline du Pré (cello)
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Daniel Barenboim

Strauss, R: Don Quixote, Op. 35
Herbert Downes (viola), Jacqueline du Pré (cello)
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Sir Adrian Boult

Dvořák: Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104
Jacqueline du Pré (cello)
Chicago Symphonic Orchestra
Daniel Barenboim

Dvořák: Waldesruhe (Silent woods) for cello and orchestra, Op. 68 No. 5
Jacqueline du Pré (cello)
Chicago Symphonic Orchestra
Daniel Barenboim

‘She clearly was born to play the cello,’ wrote the New York Times of Jacqueline du Pré in 1967. Just five years later her career was cut tragically short by illness. Providing a treasurable memento of her art, this is a newly-assembled 5 LP collection of masterworks for cello and orchestra from three centuries. It includes the Elgar Concerto, so closely associated with du Pré, and a 1968 recording of Strauss’s Don Quixote which, after a complex genesis, was not released until 1995, the height of the CD era. Now, it makes its first appearance on LP. In each work, the cellist provides evidence of what her teacher, William Pleeth, described as the ‘perfect balance of youth and maturity.’

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