Jacqueline Du Pre (cellist) New Box Set


The Complete Warner Recordings

Box Set description at Presto Music

There is a new box set from the great cellist Jacqueline Du Pre.

Note that this is a different box set from the 17 Cd collection issued in 2007 by EMI Classics, which if memory serves only covered the recordings available from EMI in CD format.

Not familiar with Jackie? Check out this short film...

Tribute to Jacqueline du Pré | by AllegroFilms

Radio Times Ad has a complete list of the set contents.

 

There is a recent article in The Telegraph news paper by Simon Heffer which begins...

"Will any cellist ever match Jacqueline du Pré?

Jacqueline du Pré’s 1965 account of the Elgar Cello Concerto makes any later recording of it redundant"

 

Sadly I do not have a subscription so will have to ask any readers of this publication to summarize his points. Personally I always have enjoyed listening to other artists perform the Elgar. I do agree that Jackie’s is always my reference point as it takes my breath away.

 

BTW - The new set is marked as REMASTERED.

bigquery

I see the new set going for $82, although it is is 5 more CDs than the last box, which I think cost around $25.  Apparently there is a previously unreleased Don Quixote with Sir Adrian conducting that had to be edited as a few bars were missing.  That I’d like to hear

I agree with the above.  By the time I became in interested in Music  she was almost deceased from the aggressive MS that devastated her.  Her charisma is evident on some of the videos she left behind.  I wasn’t disputing her greatness, but 

her career was cut to short to be thinking in”Greatest ever” terms.

Anyone out there who, like me , were fortunate enough to see and hear Jacqueline DuPre play live would perhaps agree that it was not just her technical brilliance which made her great but also the unbounded enthusiasm she brought to a performance. It was evident to all in the audience that she loved performing. Incidentally it was the Haydn I heard her play not the much vaunted Elgar.

I was just playing the Beethoven Op.5 Sonatas from the Warner set yesterday.  Last week I was playing the Dvorak Concerto.  The recordings sounds pretty awful to my ears, not unlistenable, but muffled.  I’d be curious to hear what a newer remastering sounds like, hopefully on Qobuz.

  DuPre was one of those Generational Musicians, and the tragedy that struck her down has made it sacrilege to speak of her in anything but hagiographic terms.  I think her most endearing recording remains the Elgar Concerto, which she played with such raw emotion, that threw the idea of Edwardian restraint overboard, and it was very much of the times, the turbulent sixties.  Other Cellists following in her wake have taken their cue from her-try Sol Gabeta—and it’s hard to be dispassionate but if blind listening we might prefer another recording.  As for the rest of her recorded output, they document a great Artist, but the Elgar (with Barbirolli, not D.B.) will always be her legacy 

Warners put out a 17 disc set in 2012...these days, "remastered" often scares me...