Israel Philharmonic Orchestra Concert Program. Inscribed and signed by du Pré on the front cover alongside her portrait photograph, as well as by the conductor Sergiu Commissiona on reverse. Also featuring portrait of Daniel Barenboim.

The stunningly gifted musician Jacqueline du Pré is beyond doubt one of the music-world’s best-loved cellists. When she left England and undertook studies with the celebrated Mstislav Rostropovich in Moscow in 1966, so impressed was Rostropovich with his young pupil, he declared her “the only cellist of the younger generation that could equal and overtake his own achievement.” That year, Jacqueline du Pré met the dynamic Argentinian-Israeli pianist Daniel Barenboim and they immediately embarked upon a tremendously devoted professional and personal relationship. In June of 1967, when tensions in Israel were at their height in the days leading up to the Six Day War, du Pré and Barenboim canceled all their existing concert engagements and flew to Israel to make themselves available for the needs of the country. The present program of a concert featuring du Pré and Barenboim was to be held on Saturday evening, 3rd June, 1967, this performance was in fact aborted, for just 36 hours later, war broke out. Du Pré and Barenboim subsequently performed for Israeli troops along the front lines and then, most dramatically, on June 15th, they married in a ceremony conducted alongside the newly liberated Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem (du Pré converted to Judaism the night before). Despite her incredible talent, du Pré had severe depression and exhibited suicidal behavior. In 1971, aged only 26, her playing began an irreversible decline as she started to lose sensitivity and mobility in her fingers and other parts of her body. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and this most brilliant of cellists gave her last public concert in New York in February, 1973. Jacqueline du Pré tragically died of her disease in 1987 at the age of 42.