Carol EastonCritiques

This biography takes a respectful position towards Ms du Pre's music, her private life and (oddly enough) the reader. Easton came to know Ms du Pre after she had given up performing and they were apparently working on this biography together at that time, before her tragic early death. The story of an extraordinary talent is told without an excess of hyperbole, just as it was related to Easton by Ms du Pre and her friends.

There are allusions to issues with her family and private life and without minimising them, Easton manages to give them some perspective. In the end you get the sense that, for all of the imperfections in her private life, Ms du Pre actually coped fairly well - no worse and perhaps better than many of us. The remarkable thing is that she was able to preserve and develop that talent, and Easton does a very creditable job of sharing the feeling of performance, the playing, the mechanics of tour bookings and the effect on the public and critics.

In fact Easton's real achievement here is to produce a musical and a personal biography that is readable and informative, and moving without descending into an excess of sentimentality. Which is the essence of that respect towards the reader I mentioned earlier. The author presents a life to the reader honestly and without adornment, acknowledging the limitations of how much we will ever know about a subject, but saying "Here is a story of a life, I have done my best to tell it for you."

Very highly recommended, and to the accompaniment of some of those recordings of Ms du Pre's performances on the cello, or indeed all them. A precious gift that wasn't wasted.½

Aha, Agnes' secrets!