Jacqueline Du Pre

I'm giving this disc five stars even though the Bruch really isn't very good (at least, in the orchestra - the winds are horribly out of tune; also, some solo trills are quite sharp [mic was probably too close, since you do have to trill sharp to get it to sound in tune at a distance]). I didn't buy it for the Bruch, I bought it for the Brahms sonatas, and wow, are they fantastic. The characteristic energy and instantly recognizable sound are both there, and du Pré and Barenboim are perfectly on the same wavelength regarding rubato and tempo fluctuations.

It is good to be reminded of du Pré’s vivid, intense and joyful music-making” wrote Gramophone of this pairing of cello concertos by Schumann and Saint-Saëns. “The Schumann has that kind of spontaneous freedom of line that made her account of the Elgar so famous. Her delicacy of response in the slow movement is matched by a romantic flair which carries the outer movements along so admirably. Barenboim directs a sympathetic accompaniment, following her subtle manipulation of rubato with complete understanding.

If ever a performance of Schumann's Piano Concerto stressed the principle of dialogue between soloist and conductor, then this is it. True, the Philharmonia's string ensemble isn't as watertight under Fischer-Dieskau as it might have been under some other conductors; and poetry is invested at the premium of relatively low-level drama. Orchestral textures are absolutely right for Schumann – warm yet transparent, full-bodied yet never stodgy – and poetry is a major priority. Add Barenboim's compatible vision and keyboard finesse, and you indeed have a memorable reading.

It is good to be reminded of du Pré’s vivid, intense and joyful music-making” wrote Gramophone of this pairing of cello concertos by Schumann and Saint-Saëns. “The Schumann has that kind of spontaneous freedom of line that made her account of the Elgar so famous. Her delicacy of response in the slow movement is matched by a romantic flair which carries the outer movements along so admirably. Barenboim directs a sympathetic accompaniment, following her subtle manipulation of rubato with complete understanding.

Why has one piece of music here, the Elgar Cello Concerto played by Jacqueline DuPre become so legendary? Of course it is the music itself. It has an overpowerful haunting deeply hypnotic feeling. Elgar wrote it after his recovery from a serious illness towards the end of the First War, and his thoughts were certainly on the suffering of life, and the inevitability of death. Du Pre brings to the piece not only her great mastery as cellist, but some deeper element of feeling. There is in the playing a sense of romantic abandoment of wild disturbance, and of intense and even ferious concentration.