Underrated Classical Musicians: Colin Davis (really...)

 Oy, now we're doing Colin Davis? This page has really departed from its stated purpose at this point....

Colin Davis has suddenly been forgotten, hasn't he? Simon Rattle's been such a ubiquitous presence in musical life that we forget that until very recently Colin Davis was known as the great living British conductor and a constant presence in our lives until just eight years ago.

He was never to everybody's taste. He was a bit like Giulini, the fire obviously went out as he aged, but it was replaced by something very spiritual and luminous. He was regarded in his early career as a bit of a jerk, but he was clearly a very unhappy man in his first marriage, but as he got older and married Shamsi (his children's au pair), he seemed to become universally beloved (as a person, not a musician), and always spoke, when he spoke, with great wisdom. I once heard him talk about Sibelius 5 on the radio and it was one of the most inspiring things I'd ever heard a conductor say. Many people I've spoken to 'in the business' talk about the elderly Davis with reverence, claiming he is one of the most inspiring people they've ever met.

He had his enthusiasms: Mozart, Berlioz, Sibelius, Stravinsky.... but all that opera in the 70s and 80s is basically a washout, you can tell he just didn't care for a lot of it. But then you hear his Mozart and Haydn, and all throughout his career it had pure joy: Messiah, Haydn 99 and 102, The Seasons, Mozart 36 & 39 and 41, the Haffner Serenade, Zauberflöte, Figaro, Cosi, and certain later pieces: the Missa Solemnis, ΩEroica, Schubert 9, Falstaff, Sibelius 3 and 5 (nobody ever did 3 better), Benvenuto Cellini, Damnation de Faust, Symphonie Fantastique, and of course, Les Troyens. There are certain late recordings that have the old fire: Nielsen 4, Elgar 2, Otello, Dvorak 6, but the real Davis is generally to be found making his home in the balance of the classical period, to which he brought a very 19th century conception in the very best sense, and in his own way was just as compelling in it as Harnoncourt or Mackerras. He was also magnificent in the great choral works which brought people together for spiritual uplift rather than the romantic overstimulation of opera. So it's perhaps not a surprise that, to me at least, the single greatest recording of his career is his final go at Mozart's Requiem.

I tend to think of Davis as I do many conductors of his generation, only moreso, emissaries from a more stable era, who arrived at musical truth by a mysterious self-effacement and serenity that perhaps is not possible today in our more unstable, narcissistic world. The old Davis at his best is pure spirituality, like a gentler Klemperer or the conductor Celibidache would have been were he a more generous soul. Go back to his recordings, this is the music making of a great spirit and humanist. Conductors are not generally known for their humanity, which makes the ones who truly radiate it all the more valuable.