Cedric Thorpe Davie: Orchestral Music, Volume One

For the middle decades of the twentieth century, Cedric Thorpe Davie (1913–83) was a mainstay of musical life in Britain—and in Scotland in particular—as an administrator, academic, choral director, and, especially, composer. His many film scores brought him a wide audience, but the orchestral works he wrote for the concert hall are virtually unknown. The five works heard here, all in their first recordings, reveal craftsmanship of a high order and a natural melodic gift, in a style anchored in the sound worlds of Sibelius and Vaughan Williams—both of whom he knew personally—combined with a Scottish accent that gives this music a unique and personal voice.

St Andrews Chamber Orchestra
Bede Williams, conductor