Here is buried treasure indeed. Issued to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Jacqueline du Pre's birth in 1945 – a few months late, but no matter – these three discs, available separately, include one which offers a thrilling expansion of her recorded repertory. That is the middle one, which couples a live recording of the Lalo Concerto made in Cleveland in January 1973 just before she was forced to curtail her playing career, with a studio recording of Don Quixote from 1968 which as a labour of love has been edited together from long neglected tapes.
Responsible for that resurrection is the recording producer, Andrew Keener. He discovered in the EMI archive not only the tapes from an abortive recording session with Klemperer and the New Philharmonia, but a complete take (except for the first bar) of the whole work, recorded two days later with Boult taking over after Klemperer withdrew. So from the Klemperer session Keener was able to restore the first flickering bar of the work, and to insert other tiny patches, never more than five seconds or so, to repair inevitable flaws in a 43 - minute performance. The wonder is that the tape recorder seems to have been switched on almost as a whim, or so Keener deduces. Hence the absence of the first bar. What thanks we must give now for the engineer's vigilance. Boult's instant cry of ''Bravo!'' at the end and the applause of the orchestra simply adds to the magic.
No doubt Jacqueline du Pre would have polished her performance had she been given longer in the studio, sharpening some of the bravura passages, but here is a unique reading of the piece which in its tenderness and poignancy has rarely if ever been matched. The way that du Pre plays the Dulcinea theme at its many appearances is totally distinctive, and the soaring lyricism which develops in the third variation, the extended ''Discourse Between Knight and Squire'', has a heartfelt warmth, with the cello not prominent but with du Pre clearly inspiring conductor and players to passionate expressiveness. Above all, I have never known the final death scene after Quixote's defeat to be quite so moving, so yearningly tender, and that is not merely a sentimental response. Compare this with Tortelier's 1973 performance with Kempe and the Staatskapelle Dresden (EMI, 12/92) – a version I chose for the spontaneity and warmth of the soloist – and the extra depth of emotion in the du Pre is clear, expressed without the exaggeration she was often accused of. Though the partnership with Klemperer failed completely – it was his decision to withdraw – that with Boult produces a refreshing mix, with textures clean and direct, with phrasing not as moulded as with Kempe, but providing deeply felt and understanding support for the soloist. Herbert Downes on the viola is consistently inspired to match his partner in individual phrasing. I can just imagine how much du Pre would have loved to hear this; almost every time I visited her during her last terrible illness, she took great delight in playing the recordings (often private) of her past performances.
As for the Lalo, it represents the glowing product of one of the last full remissions from her illness. With the cello relatively backward – and with some discrepancy between the two performances from which the tape has been edited – it is remarkable what fire and bravura bite du Pre conveys in the opening, leading on to an account of the second subject that is characteristically passionate and poetic in a freely flexible way. The darkness and mystery of the main sections of the slow movement is then sharply contrasted with an exceptionally mercurial account of the central scherzando passage, while the Spanish flavours of the finale are most richly caught.
None of the material on the other two discs is completely new to the catalogue, but the full price is justified by the fine new transfers of the Dvorak. Even the celebrated Elgar performance seems to have extra warmth and clarity, while the obvious flaws in the Chicago Dvorak recording have been substantially minimized, with the cello still balanced excessively close but sounding less glassy than in the first CD transfer I have (on a three-disc collection of cello concertos) and less boomy than on the more recent transfer in the six-disc ''Introuvables de Jacqueline du Pre'' set (8/94). Just as important, the harshness of the tuttis has been significantly reduced if not eliminated. The two concertos together make what EMI describe as a ''dream coupling'', though alternatives like Sea Pictures still remain.
The third disc has a newly revamped version of the Delius (du Pre's first concerto recording) which has relatively high tape hiss, but with more body in the cello sound than before conveys the music's warmth more tellingly. The recital is a transfer of the material, mainly from her very first EMI sessions in 1962, which appeared in 1983 on LP. Reviewing that issue then, I regretted the disappearance of one of the five items earlier issued on an LP divided between du Pre's cello and Herbert Downes's viola. That was the Adagio and Allegro from Bach's D major Sonata, BWV1028 with Kinloch Anderson on the harpsichord. When the Allegro was so characteristically vigorous, I am sad it has been missed out again, but the rest is as treasurable as ever, including the account of Faure's Elegie which du Pre recorded with Gerald Moore for his seventieth birthday recording. Excellent background notes are provided by Tully Potter as well as Andrew Keener on the Strauss recording. '