Alexander Graham Bell vs Jacqueline du Pré
Two music prodigies, compared on what is actually documented: field, era, country and record. No invented numbers.
The record, side by side
| Alexander Graham Bell | Jacqueline du Pré | |
| Field | Music | Music |
| Sub-field | Electronic | Classical |
| Born | 1847 | 1945 |
| Died | 1922 | 1987 |
| Country of birth | SCT | United Kingdom |
| Star sign | - | Aquarius |
Who they are
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland, into a family professionally and personally obsessed with the human voice. His grandfather Alexander Bell was a noted speech teacher and actor. His father Melville Bell developed a system called Visible Speech — a phonetic alphabet for teaching deaf people to speak, in which symbols represented the physical positions of the mouth, throat, and tongue during sound production. His mother Eliza Grace Symonds Bell was herself almost completely deaf, and Bell learned from childhood to speak very close to her skull so she…
Full biography of Alexander Graham Bell →
Jacqueline du Pré
There is a recording made in 1965, when Jacqueline du Pré was nineteen years old, that classical musicians still use as a reference point for what the cello can express. She was performing Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor — a late, elegiac work that Elgar wrote in 1919, after the destruction of the First World War, and which had been considered a minor piece of his output until du Pré played it. Her performance — large-scaled, deeply personal, technically sovereign — transformed the concerto's reputation overnight. It is now considered one of the great…
Full biography of Jacqueline du Pré →
What they share
- Both are held here under Music.
Where they part
- Born in different countries: SCT and United Kingdom.
- 98 years separate their births (1847 and 1945).
- Their lifetimes never overlapped.
Questions people ask
- Who came first, Alexander Graham Bell or Jacqueline du Pré?
- Alexander Graham Bell. Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847, Jacqueline du Pré in 1945.
- What field is each of them in?
- Alexander Graham Bell is filed under Music (Electronic). Jacqueline du Pré is filed under Music (Classical).
- Were they contemporaries?
- No - their lifetimes do not overlap.