Jacqueline Du Pre

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this edition of Desert Island Discs. Whilst we're off air over the summer we're sharing some of the gems from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy seven, and the presenter was Roy

Presenter0:37

On this occasion, I'm visiting Jacqueline Dupre, and instead of being in a broadcasting house studio, I'm in a Muse house not far from Hyde Park. Jacqueline, it's just eight records, and this is a great problem for anyone who lives with music to the extent that you do.

Jacqueline Du Pre0:53

Well, in a sense I feel it's a very lucky thing because on the Age Records I can perhaps bring my friends with me to the island.

Presenter1:02

That's the way you're going to set about it a very good way, too.

Presenter1:05

Or where do we start? What's the first one?

Jacqueline Du Pre1:07

Well, the very first one.

Jacqueline Du Pre1:09

actually is the first piece of music I ever heard in a public concert and

Jacqueline Du Pre1:15

In that concert, my teacher was playing William Pleith and

Jacqueline Du Pre1:21

It was a Schubert C major two cello quintet.

Jacqueline Du Pre1:25

The second team from the first movement.

Jacqueline Du Pre1:27

so affected me that I'm afraid I nearly drowned out the music with my tears, that I loved it.

Presenter2:34

Part of the first movement of the Schubert Tulcello Quintet in C major William Pleith with the Amadeus Quartet.

Presenter2:42

Jacqueline, your name, Dupray, is Channel Islands, isn't it?

Jacqueline Du Pre2:45

That's correct. It's from the island of Jersey.

Presenter2:47

Do you still have links there? Have you spent much time in Jessica?

Jacqueline Du Pre2:50

Not a great deal of time, but I know that half my family is there.

Presenter2:55

Your mother, of course, is a professional musician.

Jacqueline Du Pre2:58

She used to be she gave that up many years ago, but it was thanks to my mother that I learned the notes of the cello.

Jacqueline Du Pre3:06

And in fact she fostered

Jacqueline Du Pre3:08

the love I had for it by writing pieces for me and drawing pictures to those pieces and composing poems and placing those pieces by the bedside every morning so I'd wake up

Jacqueline Du Pre3:21

To this fresh

Jacqueline Du Pre3:23

Gift into the eyes.

Presenter3:25

She, of course, wa wa was a pianist. Did you start at the piano? Did you start picking out tunes at the keyboard before you had ever heard the cello?

Jacqueline Du Pre3:33

Yes, I did that because my sister played the piano.

Presenter3:36

Hmm.

Jacqueline Du Pre3:36

So

Presenter3:36

Uh

Jacqueline Du Pre3:38

I gravitated towards it and played around with it.

Presenter3:41

Where did you first hear the cello?

Jacqueline Du Pre3:43

on the radio, when there was a programme devoted to each instrument of the orchestra.

Jacqueline Du Pre3:48

And I was then four years old.

Jacqueline Du Pre3:51

How the instruments

Jacqueline Du Pre3:53

and said, I'm afraid without a pleas I will have one of those.

Presenter3:57

At your parents' port you were.

Jacqueline Du Pre3:59

They they bought me cello, yes.

Presenter4:00

Can one get one small enough for some one of four?

Jacqueline Du Pre4:04

Well, funnily enough they do come hardly bigger than a viola, but at the time you could only get a full size.

Jacqueline Du Pre4:10

But a child's hand I think is flexible enough to manage a big instrument, and I was never so hurt as when that instrument was swapped for an eighth size.

Presenter4:20

Where did you go to school, Jackie?

Jacqueline Du Pre4:24

Well, schooling was very much cut short and

Jacqueline Du Pre4:29

I won.

Jacqueline Du Pre4:30

a certain scholarship which paid for my musical education.

Jacqueline Du Pre4:33

when I was ten, but it demanded a certain amount of practice, which I loathed each day. But that meant that there wasn't time to go to school as a normal pupil. And

Jacqueline Du Pre4:45

So although I kept up a certain amount of study, I'm not uh the most educated thing you ever met.

Presenter4:55

Where and when did you make your first professional appearance?

Jacqueline Du Pre4:59

I remember giving a concert when I was six, but I cannot remember where.

Jacqueline Du Pre5:03

Except that it was in London.

Jacqueline Du Pre5:06

and it was in a hall which had a lot of paintings.

Jacqueline Du Pre5:11

which had to be covered because they were of nude females and this was not considered proper for a six-year-old to see.

Presenter5:17

Yeah.

Jacqueline Du Pre5:18

But I was fascinated.

Presenter5:19

What's your second record going to be?

Jacqueline Du Pre5:22

Brums, sonata for cello and piano.

Jacqueline Du Pre5:26

This because my first meeting with my husband was at a party I had just returned from abroad, was intensely shy.

Jacqueline Du Pre5:36

And this very vital, entirely non-shy person walked in, took a look at me and said, You don't look like a musician. So I thought, Help, there's only one thing to do. Take out my cello.

Jacqueline Du Pre5:48

So we sat down and played Brahm's E minor.

Jacqueline Du Pre5:53

And it was as if we'd known each other all our lives. There was absolutely nothing to say. Well,

Jacqueline Du Pre5:58

My second record was going to in fact be the Brahms E minor sonata with my husband, but since then we've listened to the slow mood of the F major, so the E minor has had a strange transformation, become F major.

Presenter6:10

Right. When you haven't mentioned your husband's name, it is, of course, Daniel Baron Boyne.

Jacqueline Du Pre6:14

It happens to be Tanya Pacomius.

Presenter7:18

The opening of the slow movement of the Brahms F major cello sonata, Barrenbohm and Duprui. Uh your husband is featured in your next choice, isn't he? But this time as a conductor.

Jacqueline Du Pre7:29

That's correct. He's conducting Don Giovanni.

Jacqueline Du Pre7:34

And that has very many happy occasions because I went to every rehearsal, got to know the cast very well, had a very happy time with them.

Jacqueline Du Pre7:42

And I choose this record.

Jacqueline Du Pre7:46

Again, because my husband is on it, and I would like him to be with me as much as possible on this island. But also the except I choose is because our pet name for each other is concealed.

Presenter7:59

I see. This is a game we have to guess what it is.

Jacqueline Du Pre8:01

I don't think you will, actually. I mean, I don't think you will guess, but it's there, the pet name.

Speaker 38:22

A Christmas Eve

Speaker 38:28

What a soul

Speaker 38:32

Perfect.

Speaker 38:36

Most war upon you, deep bird, ready no mind whatever. Si si facha mo kore, si si fa cha kore.

Presenter9:09

An excerpt from the closing section of the first act of Mozart's Don Giovanni.

Presenter9:15

Roger Soyer as The Don and Helene Donnard as Zerlina, and Daniel Barenboim was conducting that 1973 Edinburgh Festival production. Jacqueline, going back to your early training days, you went to Switzerland to attend classes given by Casals. It must have been a great excitement to meet the old master himself.

Jacqueline Du Pre9:37

Well, it was indeed. In fact, the whole thing was exciting because it was in a a lovely setting in Telmat, and it was my first view of mountains, and of course this great figure.

Jacqueline Du Pre9:48

Casals

Presenter9:49

You didn't find him at all daunting.

Jacqueline Du Pre9:51

No, I rather enjoyed it actually. It was quite a challenge and I

Jacqueline Du Pre9:55

It gave me pleasure to try and play as well as I could do, and then to talk about the music with him.

Presenter10:00

Yeah.

Jacqueline Du Pre10:00

Uh Uh

Presenter10:01

Your father made a a great contribution to your training, of course, when he had a practice room soundproofed for you in the family flat.

Jacqueline Du Pre10:09

Well, in fact, this had to be done because should any sound

Jacqueline Du Pre10:14

Have

Jacqueline Du Pre10:15

percolated down to lower floors where people were busy in offices. You would have been ousted from where we lived, so it was a a must.

Presenter10:20

So it was

Presenter10:23

You had a wonderful gift from an anonymous admirer of a really beautiful cello.

Jacqueline Du Pre10:28

I certainly did, in fact.

Jacqueline Du Pre10:31

To me it is my fairy godmother. It was a Stradivarius cello, and to this day it is anonymous, and

Jacqueline Du Pre10:41

I obviously loved it and put all my

Jacqueline Du Pre10:44

Musical love and thoughts into it.

Presenter10:47

When did you make your formal debut? At the Wakemore Hall, wasn't it?

Jacqueline Du Pre10:52

I had

Jacqueline Du Pre10:54

actually given a few performances in London beforehand, but this is considered the formal debut.

Jacqueline Du Pre11:02

At the Wigmore Hall.

Presenter11:04

And you had rave reviews and you were in immediate demand for festival hall and promenade concerts and whatever.

Jacqueline Du Pre11:11

That's good ideas.

Presenter11:12

Despite all these engagements coming and you felt your studies weren't over yet, you worked in Paris with Tortellier.

Jacqueline Du Pre11:18

That's right. I went there for about five months.

Presenter11:20

And you went to Moscow to work with Rostoprovitch. You stayed in a student hostel, didn't you?

Jacqueline Du Pre11:26

I did indeed.

Presenter11:27

Were there any other English students there?

Jacqueline Du Pre11:29

There was one other, thank goodness, because I hadn't learnt Russian.

Jacqueline Du Pre11:35

I didn't know one Cyrillic letter from another, and she translated my lessons for me, and we've remained very firm friends since then.

Jacqueline Du Pre11:45

Um you mentioned the hostel.

Jacqueline Du Pre11:48

Unfortunately the Russian student is so keen that at 5am every morning I would be woken by a very enthusiastic trumpeter who would tune up directly underneath my bedroom so that that was a glorious start of the day, lovely trumpet volunteer.

Presenter12:09

We got to record number four. What's that can we?

Jacqueline Du Pre12:12

A chop and polonaise.

Jacqueline Du Pre12:14

Played by Rubinstein.

Jacqueline Du Pre12:17

We had just

Jacqueline Du Pre12:18

Got married in Israel.

Jacqueline Du Pre12:21

Literally after the

Jacqueline Du Pre12:22

67th. I think it could have been the day after the 67th war was won.

Jacqueline Du Pre12:29

We went to Spain.

Jacqueline Du Pre12:31

to spend our honeymoon

Jacqueline Du Pre12:33

in an area where the Rubensteins also had a house, and we more or less spent it together with him and his family.

Jacqueline Du Pre12:40

And they have remained a very close family to us ever since then.

Presenter13:45

Artur Ropenstein playing the Chopin Polonaise in A major.

Presenter13:50

You were married in Israel to Daniel Barenboim. You adopted the Jewish faith yourself didn't

Jacqueline Du Pre13:55

Yes, I did.

Presenter13:57

By the time of your marriage you were really in the jet set, you were having great success, you were shuttling about all over the world, so was he. It was rather difficult to even get a few days off at the same time to get married, wasn't it?

Jacqueline Du Pre14:09

Well

Jacqueline Du Pre14:11

It wasn't because our lives were so organized that we were lucky we could play together pianocello.

Jacqueline Du Pre14:18

I could be conducted by him.

Jacqueline Du Pre14:20

And

Jacqueline Du Pre14:21

Even though our engagements may have taken us to different towns, we could so arrange it that we were at least in the same country and would be in close communication.

Presenter14:29

Uh

Jacqueline Du Pre14:29

Should you wish to be?

Presenter14:29

Should we

Presenter14:30

This was a piece of organization that you and your agents were able to

Jacqueline Du Pre14:32

Yeah.

Presenter14:35

Get together up

Jacqueline Du Pre14:36

That's correct, yes.

Presenter14:38

Let's have record number 5 now.

Jacqueline Du Pre14:40

That is the trout quintet.

Jacqueline Du Pre14:43

And I've chosen it because I am, in fact, greedy for my friend's company on this island. Also again, Daniel is with me.

Jacqueline Du Pre14:53

Pink is a comment.

Jacqueline Du Pre14:55

It's a permanent

Jacqueline Du Pre14:57

Zubenmeita, and I would just love to be able to listen.

Jacqueline Du Pre15:02

and recapture.

Jacqueline Du Pre15:04

The times we've had together.

Jacqueline Du Pre15:05

Through the trout quintets.

Presenter16:01

Part of Schubert's Trout Quintet.

Presenter16:05

Five friends, you and your husband, of course, and the other three.

Jacqueline Du Pre16:09

The other three are Itzrak Perlman.

Jacqueline Du Pre16:11

Playing the violin.

Jacqueline Du Pre16:13

Pinhir Zuckermann playing the viola, Zuben Mehta playing the double bass.

Jacqueline Du Pre16:19

Well, that's it. And another friend actually who happened to be turning the pages who is Lawrence Foster, the conductor.

Speaker 316:20

Yeah.

Presenter16:20

That's it.

Presenter16:26

Now Jacqueline, in July 1971 it was announced that you have nervous exhaustion and were going to rest for a year and everyone has said, oh poor girl, she's been overdoing it.

Presenter16:36

You were back in the concert hall the following year, but

Presenter16:39

Only for a few months. Then we realized that it it wasn't just nervous exhaustion.

Jacqueline Du Pre16:43

No, it turned out, in fact, to be multiple sclerosis.

Jacqueline Du Pre16:47

which has rather taunting and elusive symptoms, it can suddenly present itself in a certain form and then take itself off, leaving you free of

Presenter16:56

Leaving

Jacqueline Du Pre16:58

The symptoms for a while.

Presenter17:00

It struck you down right at the peak of your career. It must have taken a tremendous effort to come to terms with it.

Jacqueline Du Pre17:07

It does take a tremendous effort because one is naturally very frightened by it, and I was very frightened by it. It took me a long time to come to any kind of grips with what had happened.

Speaker 317:20

Mm-hmm.

Jacqueline Du Pre17:20

But then I can say that in a sense I am lucky because the cello repertoire is small, I had done most of what I loved, and I can look back on a full musical cellistic life.

Presenter17:34

and some excellent recordings, and you are very busy teaching.

Jacqueline Du Pre17:39

I'm quite busy teaching now. It's something I realize that I love very much.

Jacqueline Du Pre17:44

And to my surprise,

Jacqueline Du Pre17:47

and gratification I'm able to

Jacqueline Du Pre17:50

put into words what I tried to say. I thought previously that it would need my instrument.

Jacqueline Du Pre17:56

to illustrate what I was trying to

Jacqueline Du Pre17:58

get over to the student, but I can do it in words, and this gives me great pleasure.

Presenter18:03

What are we going to hear now? Some more music.

Jacqueline Du Pre18:05

This time I've decided on a little bit of light relief.

Jacqueline Du Pre18:09

It is something from a record made by Victor Borger, and it's called Phonetic Punctuation.

Jacqueline Du Pre18:17

And I've heard it many times, and I still am unable to listen to it without getting a stomachache from too much laughter.

Presenter18:26

Tell us what's going on.

Jacqueline Du Pre18:28

He reads a story.

Jacqueline Du Pre18:29

And wherever there is a punctuation mark, he inserts a noise in place of the punctuation mark.

Jacqueline Du Pre18:37

And

Presenter18:37

A different noise for a comma and a comma?

Jacqueline Du Pre18:39

For a comma, for a full stop.

Presenter18:41

Question mark.

Jacqueline Du Pre18:41

Exactly, yes.

Presenter18:43

Let's hear a piece of it.

Presenter18:46

In two strides he was near her, embraced, kissed.

Presenter18:51

And caressed her.

Presenter18:59

And Luis!

Presenter19:11

What is love?

Presenter19:14

She asked. Victor Boger.

Presenter19:17

Jacqueline, in your case we'll certainly let you have a companion to take to the desert island to help you look after yourself. One companion. Who would you like?

Jacqueline Du Pre19:27

Well, it's very strange to say but one companion.

Jacqueline Du Pre19:30

I would insist on would be, of course, my husband.

Presenter19:34

I thought you were going to say that. How good is he at building huts and fishing and all that sort of thing?

Jacqueline Du Pre19:40

Well, I think that is something we'd have to learn.

Presenter19:43

Even if he's no good at it, you still want him.

Jacqueline Du Pre19:46

And how?

Presenter19:47

Do you think he could build a boat or a raft to get you home again?

Jacqueline Du Pre19:51

If he were there, we'd have to.

Presenter19:54

Yeah.

Jacqueline Du Pre19:54

Find a way.

Presenter19:55

Right. Back to music, number seven.

Jacqueline Du Pre19:59

Number seven would include another friend of ours, Clifford Cousin.

Speaker 320:04

Yeah.

Jacqueline Du Pre20:05

We have loved the music we've heard and made together.

Jacqueline Du Pre20:11

And there's been many occasions when Daniel and I have sat at home and listened to him playing.

Jacqueline Du Pre20:19

And I choose a Schubert impromptu.

Jacqueline Du Pre20:23

With him.

Jacqueline Du Pre20:24

Because that would bring back not only

Jacqueline Du Pre20:27

Memories of

Jacqueline Du Pre20:28

The two of us together put the three of us together, and his family.

Presenter21:33

The opening of Schubert's Impromptu No. 3 in B-flat, played by Clifford Curzon. And that brings you to your last record.

Jacqueline Du Pre21:41

Well, funnily enough, again it is with my husband and

Jacqueline Du Pre21:47

There I'm totally biased and I didn't have any idea of what to choose because I want the whole lot. So I simply put my hand into the profusion of records he's made and came out with a Mozart concerto which he plays and conducts on the keyboard.

Presenter23:05

Daniel Barrenboy in playing the opening of the slow movement of Mozart's concerto number twenty seven in B flat major.

Presenter23:13

If you could choose only one disc out of the eight, which would it be?

Jacqueline Du Pre23:17

Well, since you have very kindly allowed me, my husband on the island, to help me

Jacqueline Du Pre23:24

I think perhaps

Jacqueline Du Pre23:26

The trout

Jacqueline Du Pre23:28

Because there we would be happy enough to have some of our friends with us.

Presenter23:34

Right. And you're allowed one luxury.

Jacqueline Du Pre23:37

Well, all I can say is that my latest kick

Jacqueline Du Pre23:41

is trying to write poetry, so I would love to have pencil and paper.

Presenter23:46

Plenty, as much as you like, and one book apart from the conventional choices of the Bible and Shakespeare, and also we don't allow big encyclopedias.

Jacqueline Du Pre23:56

Well since then was

Jacqueline Du Pre23:58

are my latest discovery enjoy perhaps Roger's Theosaurus, which would have the lot and many synonyms and things to go into and investigate.

Presenter24:10

Rogers thesaurus to help you with your poetry.

Jacqueline Du Pre24:12

Thank you very much, yes.

Presenter24:14

And thank you, Jacqueline Dupre, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Presenter24:18

Goodbye everyone.

Speaker 124:28

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.