Jacqueline du Pré - Saint-Saens, Dvorak: Cello Concertos (2000) CD-Rip

This disc, recorded live toward the end of Jacqueline du Pré's grievously short career, displays both her irresistible magic--the sumptuous, warm tone, the spontaneous immediacy of expression, the technical and emotional risk-taking born of total faith in her talent and musical instincts--and her unbridled excesses: the liberties, the extreme tempi and tempo changes, the passionate abandon, the incessant slow, sentimental slides. These would be intolerable in a performer whose playing and personality had not been inexorably affected by personal tragedy, making it impossible to listen to her objectively. The Saint-Saëns is very fast, brilliant, and impetuous, with slashing accents and attacks, but the slow section is charmingly whimsical. Barenboim and the Philadelphians support her admirably.

Du Pré's Dvorák is very expressive, with sometimes throbbing intensity, but the performance is surely the longest in human memory, though the booklet claims she did not resort to unduly slow tempi to achieve her effects. A check of the timings on other recordings(Fournier, with the same conductor, Casals, Navarra, Ma, Feuermann, and Wispelway) reveals differences of three and four minutes per movement. In truth, she milks the music; what saves her idiosyncratic approach is the utter emotional honesty behind the exaggerations. The orchestra is fabulous. Achieving extraordinary transparency, Celibidache brings out generally obscured lines and details; the winds are stunning. Du Pré's name does not appear on the cover picture, but her beauty, vitality, and radiant smile are enough to identify her--and break the heart. -- Edith Eisler