Jacqueline du Pré
– twenty years on
Anne Ozorio talks to Christopher Nupen
(photo credit Allegro films)
Jacqueline du Pré
passed away quietly on 19 October 1987,
aged 42. I can remember vividly how
I felt hearing the news. Everyone knew
she’d been ill for many years, but the
thought of her being gone seemed impossible.
Other people had died that year, but
with Jackie it felt personal. Almost
certainly it was because we’d come to
know her not only through her music
but also through film, where she moved,
laughed, and showed her feelings. Her
enthusiasm and love for music broke
through stiff, formal conventions, illuminating
the creative spirit that is at the heart
of all good performance. The world Jackie
lived in may have passed into history,
but in our technology-dominated times,
what she represented may, if anything,
be even more important. It's a reminder
that music is an art form made by human
beings. To celebrate Jackie's life,
I spoke to Christopher Nupen, who met
her when she was still in her teens.
He and Bill Pleeth, her "cello
Daddy" were holding her hands at
the end.
Nupen’s first encounter
with Jacqueline du Pré was quite
surreal. One winter evening, he’d come
home late to his flat in New Cavendish
Street. The house was still, but a streetlight
outside shone through the window. The
glass was Victorian, so it had imperfections
which refracted light onto the wall
inside in strange, unworldly patterns.
The radio had been left on, still playing
in the darkness. "As I walked in",
he said, "I saw those strange patterns
on the wall and heard sounds the like
of which I had never heard before. I
didn’t know it then, but it was Jackie
playing Bach in a live broadcast from
Fenton House. I said "Wow!"
I couldn’t put the electric lights on.
I sat down and contemplated those magic
patterns on the wall and listened to
those magical sounds. At the end, the
radio announced ‘That was a young cellist
called Jacqueline du Pré’. It
was 1961, January, I think, she was
barely 16. Then, just a few weeks later
she walked into that same flat!"
She’d come to his home
because he shared it with John Williams,
the guitarist. "She was about to
make her first gramophone recording
for EMI and they had had the idea of
recording her accompanied by several
different people, Gerald Moore on piano,
Osian Ellis on harp, John Williams on
guitar. So she’d come to our flat to
rehearse with John. The minute she walked
in the door – Boom! I saw this strange
creature striding in like an Amazon!
Jackie was a big girl, tall and solidly
built. She had a huge, long stride and
she held her cello high as she strode
down the corridor. But, at the same
time, I could see that she was tremendously
shy. Of course she didn’t know John
and she didn’t know me which might explain
the shyness - but not the confidence.
I thought to myself, ‘How is it possible
for a girl to be simultaneously Amazonian
and shy? I’ve never forgotten that impression,
it was so striking."
"And it applied
to her music also … I remember a rehearsal
in the Royal Albert Hall where she introduced
a tremendous glissando. They all stopped
and the conductor said, ‘That’s a bit
over the top". And Jackie said,
‘Yes, oh yes, of course!" and modified
her playing accordingly. I couldn’t
attend the concert, only the rehearsal,
and asked later how it had gone. She
smiled and said, ‘Well, I did it anyway,
and it was SUMPTUOUS" As Nupen
recounted this, his face lit up, and
his voice warmed. It was almost as if
Jackie was present, pronouncing the
word "sumptuous" with delicious
glee. "That was what Jackie was
like", he continued. "She
was shy, she was reticent, she didn’t
have a lot of faith in herself, but
there was some inner dynamic in her,
so that when she felt something was
artistically right, you could not stop
her with wild horses. It just came from
the inside. And how powerfully it reached
the audience! There must have been thousands
of people there, and I expect that it
reached all of them. It’s an amazing
thing which you cannot explain in words.
You can’t explain it but thank the heavens
you ‘CAN’ film it while it’s happening!"
In the early 1960s
Nupen worked in radio at the BBC. While
making his first radio programme, a
feature about the Accademia Musicale
Chigiana in Siena, he met his first
wife, Diana, secretary to Christopher
Sykes. Huw Weldon heard the Siena programme
and called Nupen at 9 o' clock the next
morning to say that he should be in
television, which was then in its infancy.
Nupen claims to have learned just about
all he knows from the Features Department
writers in BBC radio and was reluctant
to leave. In those early days, the Nupens
were able to wander in and out of the
studios at all hours of the night, even
carrying tapes out to work on at home.
He nevertheless bowed to Huw Weldon’s
wishes and in 1966 made a television
film with Daniel Barenboim and Vladimir
Ashkenazy when they appeared together
for the first time playing Mozart’s
Concerto for Two Pianos with the English
Chamber Orchestra. The film was shot
in three days and edited in three weeks
- no mean feat for the time. Barenboim
and Nupen had been friends for some
time and had made radio programmes together,
Nupen sometimes accompanying Barenboim
on tour and turning pages for him. Barenboim,
ever the perfectionist, bought him a
Savile Row suit so he’d look right on
stage.
Despite having many
friends in common, Barenboim and du
Pré didn’t really connect until
December 1966. Within minutes of meeting,
they were playing Brahms together. "The
effect on them both was like dynamite",
Nupen recalls. Months later, he was
able to capture that extraordinary energy
in the film, Jacqueline du Pré
and the Elgar Cello Concerto where
she plays her signature Elgar Concerto
with Barenboim conducting.
If anything, the dynamic
between Jackie and Pinchas Zukerman
was even more electric, since they are
both string players. "Zukerman
tells amazing stories about the way
Jackie communicated her intentions by
something like telepathy", says
Nupen. "They seldom put marks in
the parts but Daniel being the pianist
and conductor often did. They would
generally follow his markings, but sometimes
they’d depart, and astonishingly, always
in the same direction, without any pre-agreement
or even any conscious intention. They
just took off together and it worked.
To this day Pinchas Zukerman is amazed
at some of the things that happened."
In 1970 Nupen had heard
the Barenboim, Zukerman, du Pré
trio in an unforgettable performance
of Beethoven’s Ghost Trio in Oxford.
When plans to film Segovia in St John’s
Smith Square fell through at short notice,
with the venue and the crew already
booked, he telephoned Barenboim in Brighton
and asked "What are you doing on
Tuesday?" (12 May 1970). "They
came up on the first train from Brighton
that morning, and went back on the last
train that same evening. In between
we had shot The Ghost."
"We didn’t think
that the filming had gone too well because
of the shortage of preparation time",
says Nupen, "So when we finished
the editing and presented the film to
them, I started by saying, ‘I’m sorry
that the film cannot hold a candle to
that wonderful performance in Oxford,
but we have done the best we can with
material that we shot at rather too
short notice."
‘When the screening
ended, before anybody else had said
a word, Jackie suddenly said, ‘You’re
wrong!’. I hadn’t the faintest idea
what she was talking about, so I said,
’What’s wrong – don’t you like it?’
Then she said, ‘You’re wrong because
you said it was not as good as the concert
in Oxford’. I said ‘Jackie, please!
You were so busy on the stage that night
that you don’t know what you did in
the hearts and minds of those people
in the audience, the film cannot be
better’ And then she said something
so deep-seeing that it took me years
to understand it in full. She was teaching
me my job. She said, ‘It’s better on
the film because you can see what’s
going on and it adds another dimension’.
She was referring to the visual communication
between the players which says so much
about their artistic intentions and
the "telepathy" that Pinchas
spoke about but couldn’t explain in
words. She had seen that it is there,
captured on film and she saw it more
clearly than any of the rest of us."
The same thing operated
on a larger scale when Jackie, Daniel
and Pinchas were joined by Itzhak Perlman
and Zubin Mehta for The Trout. "We
shot their rehearsals and the concert
when they played Schubert’s Trout Quintet
at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in August
1969. The film shows them just as they
were, inspired by the joy of making
music together and it captures something
about the experience of music making
at its best. That film and the earlier
Jacqueline du Pré and the Elgar
Cello Concerto have brought huge numbers
of people to music for the first time
in their lives. As Jackie said of The
Trout nine years after she stopped playing,
"We were five friends, united by
our youth and the pleasure we had in
making music together. When we played
the Trout, it would have evaporated
as all concerts do, but Christopher
Nupen saw a film in it and suddenly,
there was a statement of our happiness
forever and when I see the film it gives
me back something of that feeling which
will always be so precious to me".
(photo credit Allegro Films)
In those carefree years,
Nupen and his wife Diana used to travel
with the Barenboims when they could.
"We were all young and rather unthinking.
We just tagged along and it all seemed
like such a natural thing". The
Barenboims moved in the upper echelons
of the music world, far removed from
anything Jackie had known as a girl.
She’d grown up outdoorsy, rather gauche,
in a wholesome English way. The cultural
divide between her lives was hard to
bridge, like the many contradictions
in her life. She once told Nupen that
she "wasn’t ready to move in these
elevated circles", but he contradicted
her because he could see how much people
loved her. "She was so tremendously
loveable and loved. It was no accident
that she was taken on so warmly by sophisticated
people". She mixed a lot with people
whose first language wasn’t English,
and the mid-European accent she sometimes
used was probably a result. It was a
way of blending in and helping others
to feel at ease. "She could adapt
very easily to people but also transform
them" says Nupen, "People
felt elevated by her, and she changed
them".
Tragically, soon after
those films were made, Jackie’s health
declined. In 1971, she withdrew from
her punishing international touring
schedule. She had withdrawn once before,
when she was 15, though at that time
it was, according to Nupen, associated
with self-doubt. In the film, her father
explains how she used the time positively
to develop other interests, such as
yoga and fencing. Then, in her own time,
she decided to return to playing. "She
was her own person", says Nupen,
"but the disease overpowered her.
I suppose she shouldn’t even have tried
that Brahms Double Concerto in New York,
but she did, that’s how courageous she
was. Itzhak Perlman has some interesting
things to say about this in our forthcoming
Perlman DVD. She hoped it would be alright
because she had always been so technically
secure. She managed so well that some
people thought it was just a lack of
practice. She couldn’t feel anything
in her fingers. It wasn’t a lack of
confidence, it was physical, multiple
sclerosis, affecting the nerves."
"Jackie was supremely
adaptable", says Nupen, "but
she did find touring a strain and it
got to her. She wasn’t the kind of person
who wanted to travel all the time and
play concerts every day, other things
also mattered to her, even though playing
for people was the most important thing.
She enjoyed company and teaching so
she took on students, including Nupen’s
wife, Diana, because she loved to communicate
what the cello meant to her.
"Diana died of
cancer in 1979, aged only 39. Jackie
died in 1987 aged 42. They were two
of the kindest, gentlest most constructive
people I have ever known. How do you
even try to understand that?" Nupen’s
voice deepens, as he quotes Andrés
Segovia who loved them both, ‘Ay, Christopher,
my dear, I do not understand and never
will, the cruelty of nature."
(photo credit Allegro Films)
Jackie was deep, her
directness and candour sometimes coming
over in a way that others might misinterpret.
‘But, as with her music, it came from
honesty and conviction not from any
sort of aggressiveness’ says Nupen.
‘Daniel Barenboim says in our latest
film that she often felt both superior
and inferior, because she knew certain
things that other people didn’t know
and yet she knew that other people knew
more about almost everything than she
did. She didn’t know what things cost
for example; she wasn’t interested in
the trivia of daily life. Call that
unworldly if you want, or unrealistic,
but about the things that really matter
in life, she saw much more deeply than
the rest of us.’
Many who know Nupen’s
films would say that they add up to
a remarkable achievement. They pioneered
a whole new way of using film and the
new silent cameras to put music on television,
to bring new people to music and to
please the converted at the same time.
Jacqueline du Pré would have
been immensely proud, for he’s made
sure her real legacy will endure. Her
illness eventually prevented her from
making music with her cello, but when
she made those films, she inspired others
to make music themselves and to listen
with more sensitivity. Yet, while they
were making their films, they were having
fun, horsing around, not fully aware
of what they meant. "She said,
one day, ‘we thought we hadn’t really
‘done’ anything, but it’s turned out
that we did.’"
The last filming which
they did together was a 15 minute interview
shot on 13 December 1980, to update
the Elgar Cello Concerto film, but little
of it was used at the time. "Jackie
enjoyed being filmed and participated
fully because she enjoyed the process
and felt it was an important thing to
do. At one point she said to me, ‘Kitty,
you cannot imagine what it feels like
for me to know that I am playing for
people again in our film.’ She didn’t
say her film, she didn’t say
my film, she said OUR film. With
the things that really matter she never
made a mistake. The six months which
it took to remake the film coincided
with the only period in which the progress
of her illness seemed to be arrested.
Nupen muses, "Was it a coincidence?
I don’t think so. On the new DVD, the
entire 15 minute interview is reproduced,
complete with fluffs, retakes and all
the questions which would normally be
cut out for television. Television is
always in a hurry. DVD is not in a hurry.
It is an entirely different medium.
And so, on DVD we could present the
whole thing just as it happened in real
time. I hope that it will give viewers
a more natural sense of being in her
presence."
Jackie was so full
of life that she could laugh even two
days before she died. "I remember
her laughing though I can’t remember
what I’d said. I didn’t know she was
going to be gone in two days, but that’s
how she dealt with it. She made her
life as full as possible. She was a
unique spirit, there’s no question about
it. She was a Life Force, and that can
be seen and felt, quite unmistakably,
in her playing; again something that
Itzhak Perlman elaborates on in our
forthcoming DVD."
Some might complain
that there is less musical performance
in the second Jacqueline du Pré
DVD than in the earlier one, but, as
Jacqueline du Pré might say,
"they’re wrong!" For me, music
and life flow through every minute.
What's really being shown is that vital,
creative spirit that inspires performance
and makes music come alive.
Anne Ozorio
Jacqueline
du Pré: A
Celebration of Her Unique and Enduring
Gift Who
Was Jacqueline du Pré? [56:17]
Brahms Interlude [12:00] Interview with
Jacqueline du Pré [14:55] The
Trout Remembered by Jacqueline du Pré
[1:16] Remembering Jacqueline du Pré
[56:00] Lighting Cameraman: David Findlay
Film Editor: Peter Heelas Written and
directed by: Christopher Nupen NTSC
All regions. 2007 
ALLEGRO
FILMS A07CND [210:00] [MM]
This
DVD is essential for all wanting to
rekindle the joy of the familiar, while
encountering a new and intimate portrait
of this great and beloved artist. ...
see Full
Review
Jacqueline
du Pré in Concert review
The
Trout review
Allegro
Films
Jacqueline
du Pré website
(photo credit Allegro Films)
