The American-born Jewish conductor and composer Carl Davies (1936-2023) wrote the music for dozens of films and more than one hundred TV programmes. His most acclaimed achievements in each of these formats are his marvellous Schoenbergian score for Karol Reisz’s and Harold Pinter’s 1981 film of John Fowles’s 1969 novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman, and his music for the BBC’s beloved 1995 six-part adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, starring Colin Firth as Mr Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet.

In writing music for the screen, Davis was especially skilful at creating the right sound world to bring the narrative to life for the viewer. His score for Pride and Prejudice is particularly memorable in this regard. Austen’s novel was written between 1796 and 1812 and published in January 1813, and Davis captures the novel’s most salient themes and values through evocative quotations from and subtle allusions to resonant works by major composers contemporary with the novel. Davis’s theme tune draws on the exuberant finale of Mozart’s Piano Concerto in E flat K271, and Elizabeth sings ‘Voi che sapete’ from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro at the famous Pemberley soirée in episode 5. Works by Beethoven are also frequently alluded to - notably the Septet Op. 20 and the slow movement of his Piano Concerto no. 3 in C minor - and at the Pemberley soirée Georgiana Darcy responds to Elizabeth’s Mozart aria by playing Beethoven’s ‘Andante favori’. Most significantly, it is the voice of Schubert - born very shortly after Austen began writing the first version of her novel - that ultimately defines Davis’s score: for example, the Pemberley theme and the exquisitely expressive music associated with the beauty of the Derbyshire countryside both draw their inspiration from Schubert’s sublime String Quintet in C major.

In 2016, Davis was commissioned by violinist Matthew Trusler to produce an abbreviated version of his Pride and Prejudice score for violin and piano with spoken narration by the contemporary author Gill Hornby. The resulting compact and highly effective musical entertainment vividly recreates the popular nineteenth-century salon musical genre of melodrama, exemplified most saliently by Richard Strauss’s Enoch Arden (setting a German translation of Tennyson’s poem of the same name). After its premiere in Yeovil in February 2017 with the title Pride and Prejudice in Words and Music, the work received eight more performances in that year. Our own revival provides you with atmospheric events, including Regency-period costumes at beautiful venues illuminated by candles, and act as a tribute to Carl Davis, who passed away on 3 August 2023.

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