Jacqueline Du Pré’s on the cover

of the February 2005 BBC Music Magazine, which features a 60th anniversary special commemorating the brilliant performer’s birthday.

Ms Du Pré and her husband Daniel Barrenboim made a series of recordings of sonatas for piano and cello that to me remain as wonderful as the first time I heard them decades ago. Ms Du Pré’s best known for her performance of the Elgar cello concerto, but, at least judging from her recordings, she was equally brilliant with Dvorak.

Some people might remember her from the Hilary and Jackie (1999) film, which I thought was pretty brutal. Watching the movie, I fervently thanked G-d that my sister won’t be writing stuff like that about me. Hilary should have kept her stories to herself, true as they might be. Not surprisingly, the cello playing in that film wasn’t Ms Du Pré’s. BBC Mag mentions a DVD, Jacqueline Du Pré in Portrait that I’ll have to watch.

BBC Music is a nice magazine, and comes every month with a new CD. The editors appear to be very fond of Elgar, who outweighs everybody else in the number of CD choices, particularly when you consider much more prolific composers, but it’s a nice magazine.