Carl Davis, born in the United States, settled in England during the 1960s and rose to prominence as a conductor and composer across both concert platforms and film scoring, establishing a distinctive role in each sphere.
Originating from New York City, he studied at Bard College and subsequently trained in composition under Paul Nordoff, Hugo Kauder, and Per Nørgård. He held conducting posts with the New York City Opera and the Robert Shaw Chorale while also receiving recognition for the 1959 off-Broadway revue Diversions, created jointly with Steven Vinaver.
His English activities began early in the 1960s at the Edinburgh Festival, where Diversions was staged in 1961; this exposure prompted producer Ned Sherrin to commission him for the score of the satirical television series That Was the Week That Was.
The resulting success opened doors to additional British television assignments and, later, commissions from the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.
Davis achieved his first widespread international notice in 1973 after being selected to compose the music for Thames Television’s landmark 26-hour documentary series The World at War; the program quickly succeeded in the United States and remained in circulation for decades, its somber and frequently ironic scoring counted among the most memorable ever created for television.
In cinema, Carl Davis supplied the score for The French Lieutenant’s Woman, earning both a British Academy Award and an Ivor Novello Award.
His most singular film contributions, however, consisted of newly written scores for restored silent classics that included Abel Gance’s Napoleon, Ben-Hur: A Story of the Christ, Phantom of the Opera, and The Thief of Bagdad.
Having supplied music for more than fifty silent films, he became known as “Mr. Silent Movie”; by 2005 he had also completed scores for all twelve of Charlie Chaplin’s Mutual films, the important early shorts Chaplin himself never scored.
Davis’s work on Napoleon brought him the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture in 1983, and he returned to the project when a new five-and-a-half-hour restoration premiered in 2005.
The restored version received its United States premiere in 2012, with Davis conducting the Oakland East Bay Symphony.
Active as a recording artist from the 1970s onward, he focused chiefly on conducting, notably directing a collection of Sir William Walton’s film music for EMI and a survey of his own film scores on the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra label.
In 1991 Davis collaborated with Paul McCartney on the Liverpool Oratorio and subsequently directed the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic’s Summer Pops Concert series from 1993 to 2001.
His concert output encompassed a symphony, a clarinet concerto, a fantasy for flute, strings, and harpsichord, and the programmatic piece A Circle of Stones.
Ballet proved especially fertile, yielding A Christmas Carol, A Simple Man, Alice in Wonderland, and The Picture of Dorian Gray.
His ballet Cyrano de Bergerac premiered in spring 2007, followed by The Lady of the Camellias in 2008.
Although born in America, Davis received an honorary CBE from the British government in 2006 for his services to music. He died on August 3, 2023, at the age of 86.
