00:00
[SOUND EFFECT]
00:10
Terrance McKnight: This is the Open Ears Project.
0:14
Elizabeth Day: It was Valentine's Day, I was 20 years old, and I found myself sitting next to a boy in the cinema who was not my boyfriend at the time, but was a platonic friend.
My boyfriend had chosen not to spend Valentine's Day with me and we watched this film called Hilary and Jackie, and it was the story of the cello prodigy Jacqueline Du Pré and her sister, Hilary. And I remember hearing Elgar's Cello Concerto for the first time, and it blew me away.
00:45
[MUSIC PLAYING: Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor]
1:10
I'm Elizabeth Day. I'm an author and the host of the podcast How to Fail. I've chosen Elgar's cello concerto in E.
Have I? Is it in E? [laughing]
1:44
I've chosen it because it makes me feel beauty and pain at the same time, and because it reminds me of a period in my life when I was really getting to know myself properly.
After watching that film I became so obsessed with Jacqueline Du Pré and I remember being moved to tears for four hours after leaving the cinema, and I think it wasn't just the film that was moving and it wasn't just the story of her illness.
She lived with multiple sclerosis for many years, and it wasn't simply that she died at 42, it was actually the soundtrack of this incredibly powerful piece of music that she played with such passion. And passion seems too small a word to use for it,
it was as if she was playing with her entire life in that particular moment.
2:48
My relationship ended shortly afterwards, unsurprisingly, because on Valentine's Day I was on my own with my friend, and I think in the aftermath of a breakup there are only certain pieces of music you can listen to that don't push you over the edge or seem to bear a cruel and specific relevance to your situation. Elgar's Cello Concerto was definitely something that got me through.
3:34
Four years after that Valentine's Day when I first came across Elgar's cello concerto, it would come to have an even greater resonance for me.
The man I went out with subsequently was called Richard Wilde, and we went out for two years and then split up, and six months after we split up, he flew himself out to Iraq as a freelance journalist to cover the aftermath of the Iraq war. And two weeks after arriving, he was shot dead by a sniper. And in that tumult of grief after I heard the news, I turned to this piece of music.
4:41
It was pure and simple: notes, instruments and the very human emotion of passion and approaching an end of life and… just all the deep stuff that is so difficult to talk about in the everyday.
You feel understood when you listen to it, but you feel understood in a way that is meaningful precisely because it can't be expressed in words and sentences. And it's ironic that I say that as someone who makes a living through words and sentences, and creating phrases and using words that I like to convey an emotion, but sometimes there are things that lie beyond comprehension and that are a collision of all different feelings and that's when I turn to this piece of music.
5:56
It's inexpressibly moving to me to know that age 20 Jacqueline Dupree was playing like this and in 22 years she would no longer be alive, and having lived with multiple sclerosis and being unable in the latter years of her illness to lift a bow - it was almost as if the way she was playing it was a foreshadowing of that pain. That within the playing of this concerto is the sort of knowledge that she might not be able to play in this way forever.
And I think now, talking about it, that's why it was so moving to me to hear after Rich died, because I always wondered if at some level he ever knew that he was going to die young, or if at some level we're only ever born to live a certain amount of time.
6:59
One of the things that I really struggled with in the aftermath of his death was that I did get a chance to say goodbye to him and I chose not to go to his leaving party because I didn't want to make it awkward. And I think that what that encounter has taught me is that it's always important to say goodbye. However awkward you might feel or however emotional it might be, and it’s left me with a sense that I need to keep relationships in my life, and I've always made a real effort, subsequently, to maintain intimate and loving relationships that are extremely important to me.
I love this bit that's coming up.
8:03
It's just the sort of crescendo of feeling and the mounting of… everything beautiful and profound.
I'm someone who likes to believe that the universe is not just a random series of chaotic molecules that there is some kind of plan that we can't possibly understand and I find that reassuring.
So sometimes, the people who die youngest also blaze brightest, and I would definitely put Rich in that category. And without a doubt, I would put Jacqueline Dupre in that category.
8:50
[OPEN EARS THEME MUSIC: Philip Glass’s Piano Etude No. 2]
Terrance McKnight: That was Elizabeth Day. She chose Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor. If you’d like to hear a full performance of this work, head to Warner-Classics-dot-com. We’ve got a link in the episode description.
I’m Terrance McKnight, bringing you season two of The Open Ears Project.
[OPEN EARS THEME MUSIC: Philip Glass’s Piano Etude No. 2]
9:22
If you’d like to hear more selections from The Open Ears Project, visit our website at open-ears-project-dot-org. We’ve got playlists of musical selections by our guests … and we want to add to it, with your help. Is there a piece of classical music that means a lot to you? We want to hear about it. You can write to the show at openears@wqxr.org.
Flutist and composer Nathalie Joachim is our guest next week. She’s gonna tell us a little bit about Brahms.
Nathalie Joachim: So much of my attraction to rhythm within music is really related to this sort of deeply rooted history that is not just living in me currently, but has deep ties to my ancestry.
10:10
Terrance McKnight: The Open Ears project was conceived and created by Clemency Burton Hill. I’m Terrance McKnight and I'm just delighted to present season two of this podcast to you.
If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating and a review on your favorite podcast platform. You can also head to our website, wqxr.org, to check out our other podcasts about classical music.
Season two of The Open Ears Project was produced by Clemency Burton-Hill and Rosa Gollan. Our technical director is Sapir Rosenblatt, and our project manager is Natalia Ramirez. Elizabeth Nonemaker is the executive producer of podcasts at WQXR, and Ed Yim is our chief content officer. I’m Terrance McKnight. Thanks so much for listening.
