Cedric Thorpe Davie

Cedric Thorpe Davie OBE FRSE FRAM RSA LLD (30 May 1913 – 18 January 1983) was a musician and composer, specialising in film scores, most notably The Green Man in 1956. A high proportion of his film and documentary work and compositional work has a Scottish theme.

Life

He was born in Lewisham in south London, the son of Thorpe Davie, a music teacher and choir master. The family moved to Glasgow early in his life and he attended the High School of Glasgow.

He studied at the Scottish National Academy of Music in Glasgow and the Royal Academy of Music in London. In London he was instructed in piano by Egon Petri and Harold Craxton, and horn by Aubrey Brain. He was instructed in composition by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Dr R. O. Morris. In 1935 he travelled to both Helsinki and Budapest, for further training under Yrjo Kilpinen and Zoltán Kodály. He returned to Glasgow in 1936 and began lecturing in music. Early works include the Phantasie Quartet (1935), the one act Gammer Gurton's Needle (1936) and the Concerto for Piano and Strings (1944).

In the Second World War he served in the National Fire Service covering the Glasgow docklands (an area of intense bombing). His Symphony in C major “In Honour of My Brother” was entered for the Daily Express symphony competition of 1945, coming second to the Symphony of Liberation by Bernard Stevens. It was first performed at the Royal Albert Hall on 7 July 1946, conducted by Constant Lambert. After the war Davie moved to St Andrews University as Master of Music, being raised to full Professor of Music in 1973.

He was involved in the newly created Edinburgh Festival in the 1950s, and oversaw production of important new Scottish musical works such as Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaites. He was fond of putting Scottish literary works to music, including: Sunset Song, Cloud Howe, The Beggar's Benison, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, and Ramsay's The Gentle Shepherd. He also wrote the music for the Edinburgh Gateway Company's production of Robert Kemp's musical Marigold in 1955.

In 1955 he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). In 1978, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Sir Thomas Malcolm Knox, J. Steven Watson, Sir Norman Graham, Norman Gash, GWS Barrow and Anthony Elliot Ritchie.

He lived in St John's Town of Dalry, Kirkcudbrightshire and died there on 18 January 1983.

Davie also wrote a book on musical form: Musical Structure and Design (1953). A substantial collection of his manuscripts and scores is held by the University of St Andrews.

Family

In 1937, he married Margaret Russell Brown. She died on 1 October 1974. They had two sons.

• Anthony John Thorpe Davie (17 November 1939 – 8 January 2003)
• Stephen William Thorpe Davie (born 8 April 1945)

Recognition

In 2013, St Andrews University held a special event to mark the centenary of Davie's birth.

Film scores by Davie

• Scotland Speaks (1940) documentary
• This Modern Age (1946)
• The Brothers (1947)
• Snowbound (1948)
• The Future of Scotland (1948) documentary
• The Bad Lord Byron (1949)
• The Adventurers (1951)
• You're Only Young Twice (1952)
• Highland Laddie (1952) documentary
• Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue (1953) a Disney film usually now simply called Rob Roy
• The Miner's Widow (1954) documentary
• The Dark Avenger (1955)
• Jacqueline (1956)
• The Land of Robert Burns (1956) documentary
• The Green Man (1956)
• The Kid from Canada (1957)
• The Enchanted Island (1957)
• Wales (1957) documentary
• Scotland (1957) documentary
• Rockets Galore! (1958)
• The Bridal Path (1959)
• A Terrible Beauty (1960)
• Kidnapped (1960)
• Disneyland (1963)

Publications

• Music Structure and Design (1966)
• The Oxford Scottish Song Book (1969) joint editor
• Scotland's Music (1980)

External links

• Cedric Thorpe Davie at IMDb