One instant she looked like a puckish milkmaid, the next like Ophelia going mad. The music was Schumann's cello concerto, a rapturous, heart-on-the-sleeve piece that was clearly intended to sear, not soothe, the savage breast. The cellist was Britain's Jacqueline Du Pré, who performed last week in Manhattan with Leonard Bernstein's New York Philharmonic. It was a performance to be seen as much as heard, for Du Pré couldn't sit still a minute.
Swathed in acres of floor-length red chiffon, she attacked her cello in ungainly frenzy, reaching forward to take a massive chop with her bow, arching her back,...