British conductor Sir Andrew Davis, who died on 20 April 2024, was a national treasure, popular with soloists, orchestras and audiences everywhere. As conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, his inspiring performances and humorous speeches at a dozen Last Nights of the Proms were beamed round the world.
He led orchestras from Glasgow to Toronto, was music director at Glyndebourne and Chicago Lyric Opera, and in the year of his 80th birthday had a full calendar, including a performance of Richard Strauss’s Capriccio at the Edinburgh Festival, due in August 2024. He gave this interview to BBC Music Magazine, selecting five pieces of music that have been formative to his life and work, just two weeks before he died.
- We named Andrew Davis one of the 15 people who made the Proms what it is today
Sir Andrew Davis: musical choices
Bach: Prelude and Fugue, ‘St Anne’
Peter Hurford (organ)
Decca 443 4852
As a boy, I studied the piano at the Royal Academy on Saturday mornings and played the organ for the parish choir in Watford. I used to go to Peter Hurford at St Albans Cathedral for lessons on a Wednesday afternoon, which got me out of games!
He was a wonderful teacher and a great player. One day after evensong he played Bach’s big E flat Prelude and Fugue, ‘St Anne’ and I was absolutely blown away by it. Hearing that piece made me decide that’s what I wanted to do in the next part of my life. I still play a huge amount of Bach and the magisterial ‘St Anne’ remains my favourite of his organ pieces.
Janáček: Glagolitic Mass
Czech Philharmonic/Karel Ancerl
Supraphon SU36672
I started to conduct at Cambridge and studied in Rome for a year in 1967 before coming back to London. I applied to be assistant conductor at the BBC Scottish Symphony and was offered the job, but before I took it, Sir William Glock, who had been on the audition panel, asked me at four days’ notice to conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall. The programme included Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, which I’d never conducted.
It’s a big piece, but I’m a quick learner and I was pretty confident when it came to the concert. I was asked to conduct it again, in May 1974 with the Toronto Symohony, whose distinguished chief conductor, Karel Ančerl, had just died. It must have gone well, as a month later I was offered the post of chief conductor.
Sir Andrew Davis: musical choices, continued
R Strauss: Capriccio
Renée Fleming et al; Vienna State Opera/Christoph Eschenbach
C Major 715908
In summer 1972, Sir John Pritchard, music director at Glyndebourne, invited me to be his assistant on a new production of Strauss’s Capriccio. I said, honestly, that I had no experience of conducting opera. ‘Yes, we know that,’ he said firmly. He remarked that more things could go wrong in opera than in any other field of human endeavour, ‘but when it goes right, there’s nothing like it’.
I conducted Capriccio at Glyndebourne three times while I was music director there, with wonderful casts, including soprano Elisabeth Söderström. It has stayed very fresh with me, and if you said to me now, ‘You have to conduct it in 15 minutes,’ I could definitely do it!
Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius
Skelton, Connolly et al; BBC Symphony Orchestra/Davis Chandos CHSA5140(2)
I wasn’t a huge Elgar fan in my student days, but I have since performed his music many times, especially The Dream of Gerontius, which means a great deal to me. It’s an extraordinarily moving work – you don’t have to be a practising Catholic to get its message.
I first conducted it in Liverpool with the RLPO and renowned British tenor Richard Lewis; it was almost the last time he ever sang Gerontius and he and I were both very moved. I’ve conducted Janet Baker as the Angel, and given a televised performance from St Paul’s Cathedral. It’s been a huge part of my life.
Tippett: Symphony No. 4
BBC SO/Tippett NMC NMCD104
My exposure to Michael Tippett started at the Royal Academy Saturday school. Our tutor Graham Treacher press-ganged us into playing in Tippett’s Crown of the Year with his Hampstead children’s choir. I played piano and Tippett came and was very nice. I became an apostle for his music and slightly anti-Britten, which was very childish!
I did some of his pieces with the BBC Scottish SO and I got to know him very well. The Fourth Symphony is one of his greatest works. Everything about it is so right – the timing, the clear structure – but it’s extremely difficult. I must have done it about four times with the BBC SO and when we toured it in Vienna, I was nervous about its reception. But they went crazy for it, and I think this is a symphony that will stand the test of time.