A VERY MUSICAL MENAGE A TROIS!
The affair between Jacqueline du Pre and her brother-in-law scandalised the arts world and led to a Hollywood film. As Christopher Finzi dies at 85, RICHARD PENDLEBURY recalls...
At the end of each evening at their hampshire farmhouse, Christopher Finzi and his wife, hilary, would retire to their marital bed. She would remain there until the morning — but not her husband. the hours before dawn would often find him in a nearby bedroom, making love to hilary’s younger sister, Jackie.
Sometimes, if hilary was still awake when he slipped out, she would cry herself to sleep. But generally she thought the arrangement was for the best.
She feared that her sister might have a ‘total breakdown’ without her husband’s nocturnal ministrations. And as one of the greatest cellists of her own or any other generation, Jackie had to be protected from the demons which might otherwise remove her from an adoring world.
No doubt ‘Kiffer’, as Christopher Finzi was known, would have preferred to be remembered as a serious classical musician — a composer and conductor — in his own right. Or even as a pioneer of the organic farming revolution.
Yet following his death last month aged 85, his obituaries have invariably revolved around a brief but extraordinary domestic interlude which became the basis for a film that was both acclaimed and reviled.
this was the 16 months during which Kiffer was the male pivot in a sexual
menage a trois involving his wife and her sister, Jacqueline du Pre.
Jackie died in October 1987, aged 42, having suffered long and painfully from multiple sclerosis.
At the time, her own obituaries focused on the tension in her life between the coruscating genius of the concert platform and the mental and physical fragility which shaped her interpretative powers.
the difficulties in her 20-year marriage to the similarly precocious and glamorous Argentinian-born conductor Daniel Barenboim were no secret.
But her brother-in-law Kiffer was, and would have remained, a minor character in her story were it not for the decision — of which he apparently approved — by hilary and their younger brother, Piers, to write a memoir of their sister a decade after her passing.
the trysts with Kiffer at Church Farm, Ashmansworth — and elsewhere — were laid bare in their 1997 book Genius In the Family.
And what bile, anger and disbelief was unleashed as a result.
the controversy redoubled with the success two years later of hilary And Jackie, the film adaptation of the book.
Kiffer was played by David Morrissey, with emily Watson as Jackie and Rachel Griffiths as hilary both receiving Oscar nominations for their roles. But here was a tragic icon — Jackie — recast as a manipulative ‘sexual predator’.
DeSPIte being a first-class flautist, hilary had always been overshadowed by her beautiful and prodigious little sister. As a child, Jackie’s brilliance dimmed the sunshine of the acclaim which hilary felt should have been hers.
then, as an adult, Jackie sequestered her husband.
the posthumous ‘revelations’ were a hatchet job born of jealousy, according to Jackie’s defenders, who picketed the film premiere with placards saying: ‘Music counts, not sex.’
On the contrary, hilary protested, she and her brother had simply wanted to show the real Jacqueline du Pre; a ‘very human genius’ whom they had both loved.
‘What appears to have caused offence is not too little truth but too much honesty,’ hilary, who is now 77, has said.
her husband, Kiffer, came from a musical background himself. his father was a composer who founded a small orchestra in Newbury, Berkshire. Ralph Vaughn Williams and John Betjeman were among famous family friends who stayed at Church Farm. Kiffer first came into contact with the du Pre sisters in 1960 when he met the 17-year-old hilary in Newbury, where she was performing Bach’s Magnificat.
She recalled being in a cafe when a tall, dark figure in a black coat approached her.
he was seven years her senior. She gave him her number, and they were married the following year.
But an attraction between the charismatic, confident Kiffer and his sister-in-law — ten years his junior — soon became apparent.
hilary later recalled the moment she knew her husband and sister were destined have an affair. Kiffer had called round one morning at the du Pre family home in London.
When told that Jacqueline, then 16, was still in bed, he ran upstairs, slung her over his shoulder and brought her down into the kitchen.
‘In the mornings, we would all creep around so as not to disturb Jackie if she was tired,’ hilary once recalled.
‘Mum was expecting an outburst, but Jackie just laughed. And I knew at that moment that Kiffer had done something no one had ever done. We’d always been so careful to support Jackie and look after her, and he had simply marched in.
‘I knew from the way she reacted that something had happened. I knew there was a recognition of something stronger than herself.’
Kiffer revelled in opposing Jackie, and she found him magnetic.
In 1967, Jackie married Barenboim, but their touring schedules kept them apart for long periods.
In 1971, the stress of international performances and the strain on her marriage led to Jackie having a mental breakdown.
She sought refuge with hilary and
Kiffer. the trio drove to the Finzis’ holiday home in southern France. A new crisis was building. ‘Kiffer and I knew we had a volcano in the back seat,’ hilary later wrote.
Jackie was too scared to sleep alone, so they made her a bed in their own room.
that night, hilary awoke to find her sister in bed with them.
‘Kiffer was in the middle, lying very still. She was doing her best to rouse him. I, pretending to stir in my sleep, rolled over and put my hand on Kiffer. Jackie immediately withdrew hers.’
At the end of the holiday, Jackie returned to her own empty London home, but she could not bear to be there and phoned Church Farm. Kiffer drove at once to London.
hilary later wrote: ‘When Kiffer returned in the evening, he took me into the garden and I sobbed and sobbed as he told me (but I had already guessed) that Jackie had begged him to go to bed with her — and so he had.’
In most marriages, this might have caused an irrevocable split between husband and wife, or at least sister and sister. Instead, Jacqueline was invited to move in with hilary and Kiffer, their four children and Kiffer’s mother.
KIFFeR claimed that guilt never entered into the arrangement as far as he was concerned. So why did hilary put up with this?
‘I adored Jackie so much, I would have done anything for her,’ she later told an interviewer.
‘It was incredibly painful and very hard. But it’s even harder to see a sister, whom one loves very much indeed, at such an awful state of rock bottom. So we did everything we could to help her. And I had the distraction of four children.’
On one occasion, hilary broke down and told the blithe Kiffer — who fathered at least three children in other adulterous relationships — that she feared her younger sister would steal him from her.
‘Don’t be so silly, hil,’ he told her. ‘I wouldn’t leave you.’ And so hilary allowed the menage
a trois to carry on. ‘I knew that Kiffer would never leave, and so I was safe. Jackie wasn’t safe — she was on the point of breaking,’ she explained.
‘her life was hard enough anyway, having to live with the genius that she had — it ruled her life.’
Jacqueline reconciled with Barenboim in 1972 and began to undergo psychotherapy. the following year she was diagnosed with MS.
Only once more, as far as hilary was aware, did her sister try to rekindle the affair with Kiffer.
By then bedridden, she phoned her brother-in-law and demanded that he, once again, travel to her home in London to make love to her. he refused and they apparently never spoke again.
he remained married to hilary until his death.