One of the crucial beloved and extremely esteemed conductors of his era, Sir Andrew Davis, who has died aged 80 of leukaemia, was a well-recognized presence on the rostrum, not least by way of his numerous appearances on the BBC Proms in his capability as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1989-2000).
After Adrian Boult, his was the second longest tenure of the put up within the historical past of the orchestra. Throughout the identical interval he was additionally music director of Glyndebourne Opera (1988–2000), conducting works by Mozart, Janáček and Richard Strauss, amongst many others.
The sheer vary of his repertoire was in actual fact one of many defining options of Davis’s profession. Not solely was he acclaimed as an empathetic interpreter of British music from Elgar and Vaughan Williams to Holst and Bliss, however he additionally had the power to assimilate up to date scores akin to Michael Tippett’s The Masks of Time, Harrison Birtwistle’s The Masks of Orpheus, Nicholas Sackman’s Hawthorn or David Sawer’s Byrnan Wooden, all of which have been both launched on the Proms or recorded. The Birtwistle was named document of the 12 months on the Gramophone awards in 1987.
However as he confirmed season after season within the BBC put up, Davis may convey each vitality and a discerning sense of idiom to nearly any music. One recollects, nearly at random, a 2015 live performance that includes a sensuous account of Delius’s In a Summer season Backyard, adopted by a lithe and muscular suite from Ravel’s erotic Daphnis et Chloé, the ecstatic choral shouts and shuddering climaxes leaving little to the creativeness. The live performance additionally included music by Carl Nielsen and a brand new work, Epithalamion, by Hugh Wooden.
One among many highlights of his Proms appearances was his commanding premiere in 1998 of Elgar’s Third Symphony within the “elaboration” by Anthony Payne (successfully a performing model made out of the composer’s sketches).
One other was his speech from the rostrum in 1992, delivered as a patter music to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “I’m the very mannequin of a contemporary major-general”, full with witty rhymes and repartee with the delighted viewers. The trick was repeated on the ultimate evening of the 2000 pageant, his final because the orchestra’s chief conductor. On his arrival on the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the extra truculent members of the ensemble needed to be gained over, however they have been, by his genial humour and attraction, in addition to his purely musical skills.
He was additionally fashionable with soloists, not essentially providing a radically new perspective of his personal, however listening rigorously to them to offer a perfect accompaniment. The pianist Stephen Hough mentioned he had “the sharpest ear and the clearest stick”. Each on and off the rostrum Davis exuded bonhomie and affability. His concern as a conductor was at all times to create the situations that enabled musicians to present of their finest.
Born in Ashridge, Hertfordshire, he was the son of Robert Davis, a compositor, and his spouse, Joyce (nee Badminton). Andrew started to study the piano on the age of 5 and attended Watford grammar faculty. In 1959 he began organ research with Peter Hurford and subsequently gained an organ scholarship to King’s School, Cambridge, the place he performed beneath David Willcocks. He then studied conducting on the Accademia di S Cecilia, Rome, beneath Franco Ferrara, and in London with George Hurst. From 1966 to 1970 he was pianist, harpsichordist and organist with the Academy of St Martin within the Fields.
In 1970 he made his debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and in the identical 12 months was appointed assistant conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He then grew to become principal visitor conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (1974–77) and music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (1975–88), whose stature he boosted with main excursions of North America, Europe and Asia. In 1982, he helped set up the orchestra’s new house at Roy Thomson Corridor, and suggested on the development of its organ.
Then got here the posts on the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Glyndebourne. His debut on the latter had been in Strauss’s Capriccio (1973) and he was to turn out to be a famous exponent of the composer’s operas.
In 1989 he married the soprano Gianna Rolandi, whom he had met when she sang Zerbinetta beneath his baton first on the Metropolitan, New York, in 1984 and once more at Glyndebourne in 1988.
On his retirement from the BBC in 2000 he moved to the US with Rolandi and their son, Edward, to take up the appointment of music director, till 2021, of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the place he performed almost 700 opera performances together with Wagner’s Ring cycle (2004–05). A second cycle was deliberate for the 2019–20 season, however was by no means accomplished on account of the Covid pandemic. He moreover performed orchestral live shows on the Lyric and free live shows at Millennium Park.
From 2012 to 2019, he additionally held the put up of chief conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, turning into conductor laureate, whereas persevering with to dwell within the US.
Along with his conducting, he made an orchestration of Handel’s Messiah, performing it with the Toronto orchestra, and of Berg’s Piano Sonata, op 1, and Passacaglia (Berg was a composer who impressed him, he as soon as mentioned, all through his life). His personal compositions included La Serenissima: Innovations on a Theme by Claudio Monteverdi (1980), Chansons Innocentes for youngsters’s refrain and orchestra (1984) and Alice (2003) – settings of Lewis Carroll for mezzo-soprano, tenor and kids’s refrain. At his demise he was engaged on orchestrating a few of JS Bach’s organ music.
Throughout the pandemic lockdown he drew on his information of the classics, gained as a scholar, to undertake an authentic translation of Virgil’s Aeneid. Although modest about his poetic skills, he did remark that the expertise was corresponding to that of constructing music: “The manipulation of sonorities and rhythms and the seek for methods of bringing to life the vividness of Virgil’s imagery and at instances his nice emotional energy struck me as remarkably just like the search that I’ve been engaged in all my life on the rostrum.”
His quite a few recordings replicate the huge vary of his repertoire, British and up to date music looming massive alongside Stravinsky, Strauss, Berlioz, Ives, Sibelius, Weill and the whole Dvořák symphonies. A 16-CD retrospective assortment celebrating British composers on Teldec’s The British Line collection was launched by Warner Classics.
In 1991, he acquired the Royal Philharmonic Society/Charles Heidsieck music award. He was appointed CBE in 1992 and knighted in 1999.
Rolandi died in 2021. Davis is survived by Edward, a composer, singer and conductor.
