Jacqueline Du Pré: Her Meteoric Rise & Her Sad Decline: Disbelieved & Disabled

Wednesday 7 April 2027 at 2.00 pm at the Lowther Pavilion. Guests may attend the lecture – £10 pp (pay on door)

Lecturer: Alan Silman

In brief Professor Silman has had a career studying the long term effects of disabling disorders. The series of lectures offered to the Society is based on his  research on a number of famous people in the arts,  of  the impact  of their medical problems on their achievements.  He has focused recently on engaging with lay audiences across a range of platforms aiming to inform, educate and at the same time to engage enotionally with the challenges and sorrows of may of his target subjects.

Currently Alan Silman is a Professor of Medicine at Oxford University and Senior Research Fellow at Green Templeton College Oxford. Prior to this for eight years he was Medical Director of the charity Arthritis Research UK (ARUK – now called Versus Arthritis). He is an epidemiologist with a particular interest in diseases of bones, muscles and joints.  He has authored over 700 research publications and a number of textbooks.  He is amongst the top 100 published scientists across all disciplines in UK universities.

He is passionate about the arts and has researched intensively the medical history of well-known individuals. From these researches, he has developed a series of lectures addressing how the lives and outputs, of such individuals were affected by their health. These talks have been given widely to a number of audiences across the UK to U3A, Probus and other community and professional groups.

The Lecture:

Jacqueline Du Pré was the outstanding cellist of her generation showing a prodigious talent from her early teens. Her recordings, especially of the Elgar Concerto, bought her worldwide fame. Her marriage to Daniel Barenboim enhanced her superstar status. Sadly her playing career was cut short by multiple sclerosis, but even more tragically it took  a very long time for the diagnosis to be made. In that intervening period, Jacqueline herself, Barenboim, her medical advisors and, cruelly, the world’s press dismissed her declining performance as stress and psychological weakness. In this lecture, richly illustrated with her sublime playing as well as a number of contemporary documentary clips, Alan will describe her musical career alongside the development of her multiple sclerosis. Her music is so uplifting as was her response to her diagnosis that, although this is a sad story, ultimately it is one of human resilience – and of course we still have the recordings that live on.

Caption: Jacqueline Du Pré, Wedding Day. Creative Commons