Jacqueline du Pré

Jacqueline Mary du Pré was born in Oxford on January 26, 1945. Her parents were Iris and Derek du Pré, and she had one older sister, Hilary. She began to show incredible musical promise at a very young age, and began to play the cello at the age of four, after hearing it on a BBC radio program. At five, she began to study at the London Cello School with Alyson Dalrymple. At ten, she won the Suggia Gift Award, which was to pay for two lessons a week with William Pleeth. Pleeth was one of her favorite people in the world, and was closer to her than her own family. She made her debut at Wigmore Hall at the age of 16, and at that time was given the gift from an anonymous donor of the 1712 Davidoff Stradivarius, which she was to play for the rest of her life and eventually leave to Yo-Yo Ma when she died. After her debut, her career took off. She went to many master classes and did many concerts, and after a while she began to feel the strain. She was seriously considering quitting the cello. But, she thought, she had cost too many people too much money. So this is the reason that she stayed with it. She married pianist Daniel Barenboim in 1967, converted to Judaism, and had a very good life with him, yet she still felt strain from her early career start. She played in Israel with Barenboim right after the 6-Day War. Jackie's ties to Israel and the Jewish tradition would remain with her throughout her life. In 1969, Jackie began feeling intense numbness in her hands and feet. When she went to the doctor, the doctor brushed it off as stress. But it was something much more than that. It began coming more and more, and finally Jackie went to a doctor in 1973 who diagnosed her illness as multiple sclerosis (MS). Most people who suffer from MS have a normal or near-normal life expectancy but in rare cases it is so malignantly progressive it is terminal. She was told there would come a time in the very near future when she could never play again. That time came four years later in 1977. After that she gave lessons and taught master classes, but she never played again. She died at home, with her husband by her side, on October 19 1987, having survived for 14 years with MS.