Obituary: Sir Colin Davis, CH, conductor

Colin Davis’s hallmark as a conductor was his consummate musicianship and his ability to bring a fresh approach to the classical repertoire. From  Mozart to Tippett and Britten, Davis conducted performances and recordings that are now classics. His expertise also embraced Berlioz, Sibelius, Wagner and Verdi. Davis was respected by orchestral players and singers for the way he coaxed from them gripping performances: it made every Davis evening special.

Davis was a quiet, softly spoken, man, and supremely modest. Even under severe pressure at rehearsals there was a calmness and authority about him that gave all involved an inner confidence.

He once said: “The less ego you have, the more influence you have as a conductor.”

Davis had long connections with Scotland dating from 1957, when he was assistant guest conductor with the BBC Scottish Orchestra (now the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra). That year he conducted it in a live relay of Beethoven’s 8th Symphony on the “Scottish Home Service”. He conducted many standard works and introduced new works by Scottish composers such as Robin Orr, Malcolm Arnold and Thea Musgrave.

In 1958 he conducted the BBC SSO in a concert performance of an operatic rarity, Mozart’s unfinished Zaide, on the BBC Third Programme with a cast led by his future first wife, April Cantelo. Davis was hailed as “one of our outstanding younger conductors”.

His concerts at the Edinburgh Festival date from 1959 when he conducted the London Mozart Players in a Mozart and Stravinsky programme. In 1963, he was in the Usher Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra for a thrilling account of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, and in the following year the massive L’enfance du Christ by the same composer.

In 1970, Davis stepped in at very short notice to conduct the opening concert after the death of Sir John Barbirolli. The prestigious concert included Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Heather Harper and Janet Baker. It was the first time Davis had conducted the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and, as The Scotsman recorded, “Davis engendered a magnificent volume of tone with powerful and bouncy rhythms.” Later that year he conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with Radu Lupu memorably playing Beethoven’s 3rd Piano Concerto.

Colin Rex Davis was born into a musical family in Weybridge and attended Christ’s Hospital School before winning a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London. He was a fine clarinetist but also studied piano and conducting. After national service – with the band of the Household Cavalry – he started as a freelance conductor with the Chelsea Opera Group.

After his years with the BBC SSO in Scotland, Davis gained international attention when he stood in at the last minute for the ill German maestro Otto Klemperer at London’s Festival Hall in a concert performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

In 1961 he became musical director of the Sadler’s Wells Opera where he expanded the repertoire to include lesser known operas such as Idomeneo, The Rake’s Progress and Oedipus Rex and new works like Richard Rodney Bennett’s Mines of Sulphur and Kurt Weill’s Mahagonny.

Davis then succeeded Sir Malcolm Sargent as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and was only gradually accepted by the Promenaders. His less traditional programming rather upset the diehards: especially unpopular was Davis’s desire to reduce the “hullaballoo” of the Last Night.

In 1970, Davis was appointed principal conductor of the Royal Opera – succeeding another musical legend, Sir Georg Solti. Initially the plan was that Davis and the director, Peter Hall, would modernise the productions at Covent Garden. Indeed, they enjoyed a considerable success with the world premiere of Tippett’s The Knot Garden, but within the year, Hall left to run the National Theatre.

Things took some time to improve (a lacklustre new production of Verdi’s Nabucco was roundly booed) and it took some time for the magnificence of a Wagner Ring Cycle to be understood. However, successes such as Berlioz’s Les Troyens and also his Benvenuto Cellini were hailed by the critics and public, as were a musically thrilling account of Britten’s Peter Grimes and a cycle of all the Mozart-Da Ponte operas produced in a month. The Royal Opera under Davis’s shrewd musical guidance gradually became acknowledged as a leading international house.

During his Covent Garden tenure, Davis was also principal guest conductor of various orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and, in 1977, he became the first English conductor to appear at Bayreuth in a new production of Wagner’s Tannhäuser. Other prestigious engagements included New York, Munich and Vienna.

In 1995, Davis was appointed principal conductor of the London Sympathy Orchestra and began a most fruitful association with the orchestra including seasons at the Barbican Centre and many international tours.

Davis recorded widely from 1958, his output including The World’s Ransoming by the Scottish composer James MacMillan, along with classic recordings of Les Troyens and Peter Grimes with Jon Vickers. He was also instrumental in founding the LSO’s own label.

Davis was a gentle and generous man. He enjoyed rehearsals with dedicated musicians and was a born music-maker. His standing as an international conductor was considerable and his reputation amongst musicians and singers was immense.

He was also a passionate knitter, and was often to be found in the conductor’s room during rehearsals, or even a concert, calmly knitting yet another thick, woolly cardigan for himself or a member of his family.

As well as many music musical awards, Davis was knighted in 1980 and made a Companion of Honour in 2001. His first marriage was dissolved in 1964, and the following year he married Ashraf Naini.

She died in 2010 and he is survived by their five children, and a boy and a girl from his first marriage.