COMMENTARY : Greatness of DuPre for All to See

Listening to a recording by the late cellist Jacqueline duPre, one can sense her unique qualities, but watching her play is a revelation.

We get a chance to do this once more with the release of two documentaries by Teldec (“Jacqueline duPre and the Elgar Cello Concerto: An Intimate Portrait of a Legendary Musician” and “The Trout: The Historic 1969 Documentary”). The videotapes reveal in intimate, glorious detail some of what can only be sensed on record.

What emerges from the historic 1969 documentary, from this Alice-in-Wonderland figure with her long blond hair and girlish manner is a force, a dynamism, even a muscularity that is totally compelling. And, in a mystical way, there is a power that seems to envelop her as well.

None of us really trusts what we hear on a recording. Rightfully so, because of the high-tech sleight of hand involved in the process. But here before our eyes, in performance, we are confronted with an honesty, an abandon, a love and commitment of a kind that comes only from within an artist. It couldn’t be “put on,” like a special stage costume.

What is so astounding to me now is not just Jacqueline duPre’s prodigious talent and instrumental technique at such a young age, but that at 17, as we see here, she already had her own unmistakable clear, inner voice.

No one expressed life on the cello as she did either before or since. There is no question in my mind that--along with a very select group that includes Casals, Feuermann, Piatigorsky, Rostropovich--she is one of the greatest cellists ever.

This comes through clearly because director Christopher Nupen knew and loved her dearly. She isn’t “in performance” in interviews with Nupen; she just reveals herself. She talks with affection of her instruments--two of the greatest Stradivari cellos--donated anonymously to her, some say, by Prince Charles, who took lessons from her once. She talks to her teachers: the mesmerizing British cellist William Pleeth, Casals in master class, Rostropovich in Moscow.

We see and hear her as a young girl in her early 20s. Yet less than 15 years later she was in a wheelchair, felled by multiple sclerosis, the disease that took her life so tragically.

But when she plays--the entire Elgar concerto--she is beyond age, beyond gender, beyond nationality and, even, beyond herself.

The Elgar is a sleeping giant of a work. It’s an elegy to a dying empire, to Elgar’s world--a world that perished in the trenches of the Great War of 1914. The arching, aching lines of the slow movement, to this day, stop my heart and it is where I think of Jackie’s playing the most.

I was in my early 20s when I first heard her. At first, I recoiled from her playing. I was outraged, perhaps because I grew up admiring Leonard Rose, the most beautifully contained cellist of all time.

Here was this wild panther of a girl, chewing up this piece and spewing it out. By the time the third Elgar performance was over, I just knew that I had been affected and changed. As we all were by her.

These films capture that spirit and the mystery of her artistry.

Nupen’s personal relationship with these musicians allowed them total freedom, even license. He let them be the way they were. The result is a candid, radiant look at today’s luminaries at the beginning of their careers.

Jackie will always be young for us because of the simple, ghastly fact that she was forced to stop playing so early--in her late 20s.

But when we think of Itzhak Perlman, the honored regular at the White House, the spokesman for the disabled throughout the world, the elder statesman of “Sesame Street” . . . and when we think of Zubin Mehta, conductor laureate . . . or Jackie’s husband, Daniel Barenboim, wise and gray-headed, as music director of the Chicago Symphony . . . of Pinchas Zukerman, lean matinee idol and guru of young violin talents . . . well, we’re talking of the musical Establishment of our time.

How wonderful, and what a delight, to see them nearly 25 years ago in Nupen’s documentary on the Schubert recording--falling over themselves like puppies and plopping into the glorious “Trout” Quintet.

We see the high spirits, young faces and all their musical mischief. Itzhak playing “The Flight of the Bumble Bee” on Jackie’s Strad cello--and playing it unbelievably well. Zubin, a full-fledged conductor even then--already a bit awkward on his double bass. Daniel, a bit bossy and disapproving of so much playfulness around him. Pinchas, the confident Gypsy of the group. And Jackie, whom they loved and admired--and whom they all tumbled over for--shown here in her grace.

And what a wonderful, wonderful performance when it finally comes.

We forget that Schubert wrote the “Trout” Quintet when he was their age--and that he wrote it for a friend of his age too.

It’s full of sunshine and fun, unforced and flowing beauty--and infinite tenderness. And this group captures it all.

They have greatness now. But then, they had something almost immortal . . . the blessing of youth.

When I think of teaching my Piatigorsky class at USC, I think I might as well take half the year and sit these young musicians in front of these two videos again and again . . . until they get it. That love of music, commitment, enthusiasm that comes from the bones--not from ambition--to achieve one’s own inner voice ringing true. This is music-making as it’s meant to be.

It confronts us here at last on these wonderful, valuable and much-treasured documentaries.