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Maybe a few know the name of Scottish composer Cedric Thorpe Davie (1913 – 1983). If there wasn’t the beautiful Disney Picture Kidnapped (1960, starring Peter Finch and James McArthur), Davie would be totally unknown to me.
Saying it with one word: This music is marvellous. He used Scottish and Celtic flavoured folk tunes and mixed with his romantic in parts impressionistic musical language and a rich instrumentation. In parts it recalls Sainton’s “Moby Dick”
The internet will give you only rare information about the composer, and there are even less CD recordings of his music. He isn’t even listed in www. soundtrackcollector.net and only sparsely credited in imdb.com.
A nice biography which is more concerned with his person than it is with his music can be found here: http://www.musicweb.uk.net/Davie/
A CD released of Kidnapped would be a great thing, but hopeless. Maybe a job for John Morgan or Rumon Gamba on Chandos Label.
Does anybody know the movie or the music? What do you think?
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Does anybody know the movie or the music? What do you think?
Well I don't know this score, but Cedric Thorp Davie did an enormously clever score for the Alistair Simm black comedy, The Green Man. That was the only score of his I'd heard of before reading your post.
Did he do any others?
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Well I don't know this score, but Cedric Thorp Davie did an enormously clever score for the Alistair Simm black comedy, The Green Man. That was the only score of his I'd heard of before reading your post.
Did he do any others?
Paul
As listed in www.imdb.com he had scored those films:
A Terrible Beauty (1960)
... aka The Night Fighters (USA)
Kidnapped (1960)
The Bridal Path (1959)
Oedipus Rex (1957)
Rockets Galore! (1957)
... aka Mad Little Island (USA)
The Green Man (1956)
Jacqueline (1956)
The Dark Avenger (1955)
... aka The Warriors (USA)
Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue (1954)
The Adventurers (1951)
... aka Fortune in Diamonds (USA)
... aka South African Story
... aka The Great Adventure (USA)
The Bad Lord Byron (1949)
Snowbound (1948)
The Brothers (1947)
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What about the Disney vaults? Will they be opened to soundtrack labels some day?
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I saw Kidnapped a long time ago, and remember liking it. My favourite of Davie's scores would be The Dark Avenger; an Allied Artists picture, so probably not much chance of it being released.
I think the best chances for both scores would be a newly-recorded selection from all his scores by Chandos. I've not heard his name associated with any planned release, but until a couple of weeks ago I wasn't aware of the Stanley Black CD coming from them.
It's a shame that unlike John Morgan, Philip Lane (Chandos's reconstructor) doesn't seem to be a board member.
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It's 14 years since my previous contribution to this thread. I decided to send a note to Chandos Movies....
Hi, I have purchased most of your Chandos Movies titles over the years and am very pleased with them all. May I be so bold as to suggest a recording of The Film Music of Cedric Thorpe Davie. There seems to be very little of his works available, and I would particularly appreciate an extended suite of his score to The Dark Avenger (1955), a rip-roaring Errol Flynn feature known in the USA as The Warriors. I hope you are receptive of the suggestion.
If they reply I'll let you know.
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Sign me up! But maybe the original recording survives and Intrada could consider releasing it, some day...
Yavar
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It's 14 years since my previous contribution to this thread. I decided to send a note to Chandos Movies....
Hi, I have purchased most of your Chandos Movies titles over the years and am very pleased with them all. May I be so bold as to suggest a recording of The Film Music of Cedric Thorpe Davie. There seems to be very little of his works available, and I would particularly appreciate an extended suite of his score to The Dark Avenger (1955), a rip-roaring Errol Flynn feature known in the USA as The Warriors. I hope you are receptive of the suggestion.
If they reply I'll let you know.
Just heard back...
Dear Sir,
Thank you so much for your suggestion.
We will put it in our list of things to do with Rumon Gamba and the Film Music series.
Kind Regards
The Chandos Team
I'll keep my fingers crossed.
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Nice!
Yavar
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Nice!
Yavar
It may go nowhere, but he is highly thought of in Scotland and all his existing CD recordings cover only his non-Film Music repertoire. A great shame as he has recently has his Centenary. I believe that Philip Lane is one of the key reconstructors for the Chandos label and he worked on a recording of what was described as Scottish Light Music and included Davie's Royal Mile March so he should be familiar with his Film Score catalogue.
The Land of Mountain and Flood - Scottish Orchestral Music Royal Ballet Sinfonia conducted by John Wilson ASV CD WHL 2123 [70:46]
"It is perhaps worth noting that Cedric's film music alone (never mind music for some fifty radio and TV productions) occupied over one thousand pages of full score! Light music - perhaps, but serious work!".
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