Jacqueline Mary du Pre OBE (January 26, 1945 - October 19, 1987) was an English cellist.

Born in Oxford, Jacqueline du Pre is acknowledged as one of the greatest cellists who ever lived. She had a successful career until the onset of the multiple sclerosis which eventually led to her tragically early death.

The younger daughter of a well-to-do, cultured, competitive family, du Pre was 4 years old when she heard the cello for the first time, on the radio. From then on the sound of the instrument never left her life, starting with lessons from her mother Iris du Pre. Two years later, she started receiving lessons at a London cello school and entering music competitions alongside her sister. At ten years old she won a prize at an international competition, and by the age of twelve she was performing in concerts for the BBC in London. She studied under William Pleeth at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, under Paul Tortelier in Paris, under Rostropovich in Russia, and under Casals in Switzerland.

Career

Throughout her career, du Pre performed with prestigious orchestras and soloists. In particular, her recording of the Elgar concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir John Barbirolli in 1965 brought her international recognition. For this performance, she used her second Stradivarius - the 1712 Davydov Stradivarius - which was given to her by an admirer and her godmother, Ismena Holland.

In 1965, du Pre played the Elgar concerto at her first appearance in the United States of America on May 14 at Carnegie Hall.

Her friendship with musicians Itzhak Perlman, Zubin Mehta, and Pinchas Zukerman, and marriage to Daniel Barenboim, led to the famous film by Christopher Nupen of their Schubert "Trout" Quintet; collectively, the five referred to themselves as The Jewish Musical Mafia.

Awards

Du Pre received several fellowships from music academies and honorary doctorate degrees from Universities, as an acknowledgment of her talent. In 1960, she won the gold medal of the Guildhall School of Music in London and the Queen's Prize for British musicians. She was created an OBE in 1976.

Marriage

Jacqueline met pianist Daniel Barenboim at Christmas in 1966. Their marriage one year later brought about one of the most fruitful relationships in the world of music: some consider it comparable only to that of Clara and Robert Schumann. This was evidenced by the many performances of du Pre with Barenboim as either a pianist or orchestral conductor. She converted to Judaism for the marriage.

Jacqueline's sister, Hilary, was married to the conductor, Christopher "Kiffer" Finzi, with whom Jacqueline had an affair. According to Hilary and her brother Piers in their book A Genius in the Family (released in America as Hilary and Jackie), the affair was conducted with Hilary's consent as a way of helping Jacqueline through a near-nervous breakdown, during which she exhibited suicidal behavior. Reportedly, Jackie begged Hilary to sleep with Kiffer as a way of living a simple life away from celebrity. In 1999, Kiffer and Hilary's children publicly criticised their mother's account and laid out a different version of events, in which their father was a serial adulterer who seduced their emotionally vulnerable aunt in a time of great need in order to gratify his own ego.

Anand Tucker's film Hilary and Jackie (1998) is based on A Genius in the Family.

The disease

In 1973, Jacqueline du Pre's playing abilities began an irreversible decline when the artist began to lose sensitivity in her fingers. It was the beginning of symptoms of her multiple sclerosis, the disease that caused her health to deteriorate until her death in London on October 19, 1987, at the age of 42. Barenboim was with her when she died. She left her Davidov Stradivarius to Yo-Yo Ma, while Lynn Harrell acquired the 1673 Stradivarius (which he named the 'du Pre' Stradivarius as a tribute to the cellist).

In the last years of du Pre's life, Barenboim set up home in Paris with pianist Elena Bashkirova, and fathered two children by her, David and Michael. They married in 1988.