One of the most enduring film sequences of Jacqueline du Pré is of the cellist on a train heading to Gatwick airport. Her face transfused with joy, she’s singing a French folk song and accompanying herself, pizzicato, on the cello. The director responsible for that footage, Christopher Nupen, who has died at the age of 88, made no fewer than six films, including compilations, involving Du Pré, and no one was more successful in capturing her infectiously uncontainable pleasure in performing.
A series of other pioneering, psychologically probing films made early in his career featured Daniel Barenboim – Du Pré’s husband and playing partner – and several friends, among them Vladimir Ashkenazy and John Williams, all at that time electrifying the London music scene.
