Jacqueline du Pré
1 portrait of Jacqueline du Pré
Photo by Sefton Samuels/Popperfoto
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Jacqueline du Pré
by Sefton Samuels
bromide print, 1969
9 in. x 11 5/8 in. (230 mm x 294 mm) image size
Purchased, 1971
Photographs Collection
NPG x129512
Linked publicationsback to top
- 100 Pioneering Women, p. 120 Read entry
Although her playing career ended when she was twenty-seven, Jacqueline du Pré (1945-87) is considered one of the most distinctive cellists of the twentieth century, known for the innovative physicality of her playing and her emotional performances. In 1956, she won the prestigious Guilhermina Suggia scholarship, studying with William Pleeth at the Guildhall School of Music, London. (She would later study with Tortelier, Casals and Rostropovich.) She was awarded the Guildhall Gold Medal and Queen’s Prize in 1960, and made her official debut at London’s Wigmore Hall the following year. Her first professional concert with orchestra was in 1962 – playing Elgar’s Cello Concerto, the work for which she became best known. Her stature as a great musician of international standing was established in 1965, with a US tour and an EMI recording of the Elgar concerto under John Barbirolli. Following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, in 1968, she and pianist-conductor Daniel Barenboim (whom she had married in 1967) played a benefit concert, despite death threats. In 1973, a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis cut short her career as a performer, although she continued to teach. She was made Honorary Fellow of St Hilda’s College, Oxford, the city of her birth. The college’s Music Building bears her name – a fitting legacy to an inspiring career of blazing intensity.
Events of 1969back to top
Current affairs
The Open University is established, based on the vision of Michael Young. Its aims were to offer the chance to study for higher education qualifications on a part time and distance learning basis, giving people who were unable to attend a traditional university because of family, work commitments or disability the opportunity to achieve university degrees.Art and science
The comedy sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus is first broadcast. The Pythons performed surreal sketches that reinvented the comedy tradition, eschewing punch lines for a stream-of-consciousness structure and incongruous authorial interventions: 'and now for something completely different'.Kenneth Tynan's Oh! Calcutta amuses and shocks audiences with full nudity on stage, taking advantage of the recent end to censorship laws.
International
Neil Armstrong takes 'one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind' when he becomes the first man on the moon.Concorde makes its first supersonic flight. The plane was designed, developed and manufactured by a joint treaty between the French and English governments.
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