Requiems For Jackie

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Wilson's biography, by contrast, offers a straightforward, scholarly account of the cellist's life. Barenboim not only urged Wilson, a family friend, to write the book but also shared his papers with her and even read her manuscript before it was published. Drawing on scores of interviews with people who knew Du Pre, Wilson tracks her career and scrupulously reconstructs all her performances. But the author doesn't completely shy away from salacious matters. She mentions the affair and notes that Du Pre also felt abandoned by Barenboim, who cared for her when she was ill but, during the same time, also set up house and fathered two children with another woman. This material, though, is dispensed with quickly. Du Pre, Wilson says, "would have been appalled" by the more intimate approach of her family's book.

One thing the Du Pres and Wilson agree on is that reviving Du Pre's memory will help popularize her again. And in the end, it is Du Pre's music that will be her true legacy.