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Sir Colin Davis(1927-2013)

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Dundonnell
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« on: April 15, 2013, 03:04:48 am »

The death has just been announced of Sir Colin Davis at the age of 85 :(

Davis was the greatest living British conductor. I first saw him when he was Assistant Conductor of the BBC Scottish Orchestra(as then was) conducting the offstage chorus in 'Neptune' from Holst's "Planets Suite" in a performance by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Malcom Sargent in the Usher Hall in Edinburgh back in the 1950s.

He made his reputation as a quite incomparable conductor of Berlioz, Sibelius and Tippett, as a programmer of modern music with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and as a great interpreter of opera during his stint at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

But like fine wine Davis matured as the years went by into a superb conductor with a deeper and more profound understanding of the repertoire. At the London Symphony Orchestra(probably Britain's finest orchestra) he came, late in life, to composers like Bruckner and, recently, Nielsen and his performances of these great composers along with his re-recordings of Sibelius will be a lasting memorial to a very great conductor.

He was not, apparently, over-keen on some of the British composers I revere...but even Vaughan Williams finally was embraced by him.

The deaths in recent years of British conductors of the stature of Vernon Handley and Richard Hickox dealt a severe blow to the cause of British Music but that of Colin Davis is a dreadful loss to Music in general.

He was truly a Great Conductor.....and there are few of those left. The octogenarians include Boulez, Blomstedt, Masur, Dohnanyi, Haitink, Previn, Maazel, Rozhdestvensky and Abbado but one can argue about how many of these are really great.

Sir Colin......RIP :(
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albert
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« Reply #1 on: April 15, 2013, 01:54:42 pm »

Regretting the loss , I am anyway lucky to have seen Sir Colin Davis conducting in my city four times the LSO (also Vaughan Williams Fourth Symphony, and even MacMillan The World's Ransoming).
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jimfin
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« Reply #2 on: April 15, 2013, 02:11:16 pm »

One of the true maestros, and with a career so long that he used to conduct Berlioz when he wasn't fashionable! I love his recording of Les Troyens
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Dundonnell
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« Reply #3 on: April 15, 2013, 03:40:09 pm »

It seems apppropriate to post this link today:

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