Search - Johannes Brahms, Max Bruch, Daniel Barenboim :: Brahms: Cello Sonatas [includes bonus DVD]

Recorded (but apparently not released) in 1968, a year after du Pre's marriage to Barenboim and only three years before the onset of her illness at the peak of her career, this disc will stop your breath and break your heart. The low E that begins the first Sonata immediately heralds a unique performance with its concentrated intensity and organ-like resonance. Du Pre's tone is incomparably beautiful, warm, rich, pure, and infinitely variable, and Barenboim, leading and supporting, matches it in color and nuance; balance and ensemble are perfect, with the natural give-and-take of intimate conversation. This is truly a musical marriage made in heaven. Their playing has the romantic poetry and ardor, the freedom and recklessness befitting their youth. They take tempi leisurely enough to savor every note, but vary and adapt them to fit changes of mood, character and expression, unafraid of big ritards and long pauses. The first Sonata's opening movement is very slow, the second wistful, dreamy, with a spoken quality; the fugue is clear, stately, majestic. The second Sonata is exuberant, bursting with vigor and driving energy; the finale is light and daringly fast. The slow movement is inward and serene, but full of slides, as is the otherwise deeply moving Kol nidrei. There is a grand, over-life-sized, no-holds-barred quality about the performances; surely only the greatest artists, through genuine depth of feeling and power of personality, can risk playing with such emotional abandon, and make it work. The disc includes a DVD of excerpts from a 1994 film called Remembering Jacqueline du Pre. The two players made--and released--another recording of the Sonatas a few months later. That performance, though good, is careful and restrained: gone is the spontaneous, uninhibited response to the music that makes the earlier one so irresistible. --Edith Eisler