Carl Davis who died recently was an American-born British conductor and composer. He wrote music for more than 100 television programs. Davis was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to Jewish parents, Sara (née Perlmutter) and Isadore Davis. He studied composition with Paul Nordoff and Hugo Kauder, and subsequently with Per Norgard in Copenhagen. He attended Bard College, in New York. His early work in the US provided valuable conducting experience with organizations such as the New York City Opera and the Robert Shaw Chorale. In 1959 the revue Diversions, of which he was co-author, won an off-Broadway award and subsequently travelled to the Edinburgh Festival in 1961. As a direct result of its success there, Davis was commissioned by Ned Sherrin compose music for the original British version of That Was The Week That Was. Other radio and TV commissions followed and Davis’s UK career was launched.
Davis achieved early prominence with the title music for the BBC’s anthology play series The Wednesday Play and later for Play for Today. For the critically acclaimed and popular success Pride and Prejudice (1995) Davis used period classical music as his inspiration, in particular Beethoven’s Septet in E Flat Major, Op. 20 and a theme strongly reminiscent of the finale of his Emperor Concerto. Other television scores included The Naked Civil Servant (1975), Prince Regent (1979), Private Schulz (1980), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1982), The Far Pavilions (1984), Hotel Du Lac (1986), Upstairs, Downstairs (2010), and Brexicuted (2018). Davis also worked for television producer Jeremy Isaacs in providing the original music for the documentary history series The World at War (1973) for Thames and Cold War (1998) for the BBC
In the late 1970s, Davis was commissioned by documentarians Kevin Brownlow and David Gill to create music for Thames Television’s Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film (1980). His association with them continued the same year with Abel Gance’s epic silent film Napoleon (1927), which was restored and Davis’ music was used in its cinematic re-release and television screenings. There was a similar treatment for D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916). This had orchestral music originally, but Davis’s new score was used instead in 1989. The Hollywood documentary series was followed by the documentaries about Chaplin and Lloyd. In the 1980s and 1990s, Davis wrote and conducted the scores for numerous Thames Silents releases and television screenings.
By 1993, his reputation made him the number one choice for new scores to silent films. Many DVD releases, including Ben Hur (1925), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Chaplin’s City Lights (1931) (re-orchestrated by Davis based on Chaplin’s and Padilla’s original written score) and Erich von Stroheim’s Greed (1924), use Davis’s music. Davis also created an entire re-scoring of Clarence Brown’s Flesh and the Devil (1927). In many of these recordings, he was the conductor as well the composer. On several occasions he conducted these scores live in the cinema, as well as in concert halls as the film was being screened.
Davis composed a number of film scores, including the BAFTA winning The French Lieutenant’s Woman in 1981. His other film scores included The Bofors Gun (1968), I, Monster (1971), Up Pompeii (1971), Up the Chastity (1971), Rentadick (1972), Scandal (1989), The Rainbow (1989), and The Understudy (2008). Davis also wrote a number of compositions for the stage and concert hall.
