A genius in the family / Hilary Du Pré

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

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text excerpt

After the Wigmore, the agents Ibbs and Tillett were assigned to look after Jackie and organise her concert diary. Emmie Tillet was one of the most powerful agents in the business. She booked Jackie’s concerto début: the Elgar at the Royal Festival Hall in London, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rudolph Schwarz. As bookings were usually fixed well in advance, the earliest date that could be arranged was 21 March 1962, a year after the Wigmore. This concert marked the beginning of Jackie’s special relationship with the Elgar concerto, which she would play many times throughout her career. Her unique interpretation of the music was fresh and exciting, and eclipsed everything that had gone before. Jackie’s ability to portray the emotions of a man in the autumn of his life was one of her extraordinary and inexplicable capacities. From early on she had an emotional understanding way beyond her years with the capacity of exposing those feelings in her playing. We cannot imagine or rehearse untried emotions, but with Jackie and her cello they erupted: she loved them, played with them openly and was fearless of them. Nothing stopped her going as far as she wanted and further than anyone had ever been before. She had infinite imagination, total freedom: there was nothing in her way. She found the heart of the music and expressed it with such penetrating directness her audience were enraptured.

excerpt from 'A genius in the family / Hilary Du Pré' pp. 133 (241 words)

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1406035070669