Janet Baker – Sea Pictures/ Sir John Barbirolli conducting London Symphony Orchestra
Jacqueline Du Pre’s career lasted just 11 years, but within that space of time she achieved a reputation as one of the finest cellists of the twentieth century. Not long afer her debut in 1961, at the age of 16, she played the Elgar Cello Concerto in public for the first time with great success. In August 1965 she recorded the work for HMV. Her conductor was Sir John Barbirolli, a famous Elgar interpreter who as a young man had known the composer. Though Du Pre went on to make many other superlative recordings it is in the Elgar “Concerto”, and this recording, that she is most remembered. The work’s richly romantic, nostalgically autumnal mood is a fitting and appropriate memorial to an artist who performing career was cruelly cut short by a disease at the age of 42.

In August 1965, Barbirolli made a second Elgar recording with another outstanding young artist, the mezzo-soprano Janet Baker, whose finely sung, imaginative interpretation of the beautiful song cycle “Sea Pictures” makes an ideal coupling for Du Pre’s performance.

The famous LP is available in Testament’s audiophile reissue. Authentic analogue techniques have been employed in making transfers from the original recording, and high-quality 180 gram pressings have been made from virgin vinyl. The record is issued in a special limited collectors’ edition.