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Jacqueline du Pré and The Trout
Clip: 1/24/2025 | 4m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
Jacqueline du Pré's influence on classical music, with a backdrop Schubert's Trout Quintet.
In the summer of 1969, five young stars of the classical music industry came together to perform Schubert's Trout Quintet at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. It was a momentous occasion in the history of music and for Jacqueline du Pré, shortly before she began to experience the telling symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
![Jacqueline du Pré: Genius and Tragedy](https://image.pbs.org/contentchannels/3aD3psB-white-logo-41-FbUFwSU.png?format=webp&resize=200x)
Jacqueline du Pré and The Trout
Clip: 1/24/2025 | 4m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
In the summer of 1969, five young stars of the classical music industry came together to perform Schubert's Trout Quintet at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. It was a momentous occasion in the history of music and for Jacqueline du Pré, shortly before she began to experience the telling symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
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Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipAnd, of course, she ruined that piece for me, because every time I hear somebody play that piece, I say to myself, "It's not Jackie, it's not Jackie."
I can't listen to that piece until, you know, when I hear a particular... ..a particular phrase...
HE HUMS PHRASE And I say, "Oh, God, that's not her.
"That sounds good but it's not Jackie."
YO-YO MA: Alongside her husband and close friends, Jacqueline du Pré was a founding member of a classical "Rat Pack" that injected fresh vigor and glamor into an industry steeped in tradition and seemingly detached from the public.
HE PLAYS BRAHMS' LULLABY My God, he's sleeping!
THEY LAUGH In the early sixties, things changed, and a different kind of musician started coming onto the scene and buzzing with the scene, who clearly owed nothing to the atmosphere of deference.
They were enjoying what was the beginning of Swinging London, and something flips, and the world of music is never going to be the same again, because what was cast out of this... ..was a sense of immense generational shift, as they were making their impact on the music scene and changing it.
ARCHIVE: Youth, the swinging youth who have given staid and sober old London its recent Swinging metaphor.
And it's the voice of youth which is decreeing change in this city of increasing contrasts.
Not even the gay young things of the '20s could make such a shattering impression on our capital, as this generation.
Swinging London.
But Jackie was, in a sense, the center of the classical music scene, because here was a person who was widely regarded as a genius, and there was tremendous enthusiasm for her and for her performances.
And it was almost like a cult, but it had a knock-on effect on the whole of the rest of music in London.
Janet, come and sing The Trout!
JANET: No!
JACKIE: Come and sing The Trout, Janet!
Oh, come on, now is the time to do it.
Janet!
Come on!
JANET SINGS DANIEL: London was, in the sixties, the musical capital of the world, because Germany was still closed to many Jews, who didn't want to come to Germany, Arthur Rubinstein and others, the orchestras were very good, and we all created, I suppose, a certain atmosphere which was typical of London.
INDISTINCT JACKIE: We were five friends linked by our youth and by the pleasure we had in making music together.
And suddenly there was a statement of our happiness, forever.
When you're not actually giving concerts, you can forget the immediacy of the feeling, even though you've still lived every note, totally.
But when I see The Trout, it gives me back something of that feeling which will always be so precious to me.
So here's to music really being the food of love.
YO-YO: This legendary ensemble for Schubert's Trout Quintet was the highlight of the 1969 South Bank Summer Music Festival, with Jacqueline du Pré at the peak of her prowess.
THEY CHEER Yahoo!
YO-YO: With the irony of hindsight, she would later look back to this happy time and recognize the early and elusive signs of the disease which would soon end the career she loved so much.
Jacqueline du Pré: A Glimpse of Genius
Video has Closed Captions
An encapsulation of Jacqueline du Pré's unique talent and musicality. (4m 41s)
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