Jacqueline du Pré: Elgar, Cello Concerto, Sea Pictures [WARNER CLASSICS]

Why you'll love it

This 180g pressing uses the 24-bit/96kHz remaster from the original tapes. Du Pré was 20 when she recorded the concerto at Kingsway Hall in August 1965, and the performance became the one every later cellist is measured against.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Remastered from the original tapes

About the album

Elgar wrote his Cello Concerto in 1919, just after the First World War, an autumnal piece from a composer looking back. Plenty of great cellists have played it, but when a young Englishwoman with a Stradivarius took it on, she made it hers.

Du Pré played the 1712 Davidov Stradivarius, and Barbirolli and the London Symphony Orchestra give her all the room she needs. The opening Adagio is grave and searching, the Lento flickers with nervous energy, the slow movement is pure heartache and the finale builds to a return of the opening theme that still stops listeners in their tracks. On the other side, mezzo-soprano Janet Baker sings Elgar's Sea Pictures, recorded at Abbey Road that same month, from the lullaby of "Sea Slumber Song" to the sunlit "In Haven (Capri)" and the surging "The Swimmer."

The album first came out on His Master's Voice, and Yo-Yo Ma has played her Davidov cello since her death. Barbirolli had been a cellist himself, which must have made for a very short list of notes after each take.

Also at Kops: more Jacqueline du Pré on vinyl · browse World

Tracklist

Listen

On Warner Classics, a reissue of the 1965 album.