‘You could see it on the first day and then as the next few lessons went on it just unfolded itself like a flower’
The metaphor of the flower, used here by Jacqueline du Pré’s cello teacher, is particularly apt to describe her budding genius. One of the greatest cellists of all time, like a flower her bloom was to be tragically short. At the age of just 28 MS (multiple sclerosis) robbed her of her God given talent – she was to die at just 42. Yet, we still have the recordings – capturing, as they do, her passionate lyricism, her magnetic presence.
