On 17 and 18 March Carl Davis conducted two concerts of his music at the Cinémathèque de la Ville de Luxembourg. He joined longstanding collaborators Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg for three of his silent movie scores: Chaplin comedy The Rink, Buster Keaton’s One Week, and Douglas Fairbanks’ swashbuckling tale The Iron Mask, after Alexander Dumas’ D’Artagnan trilogy. Davis last conducted the OPL in February 2022 in two Chaplin silents and two by Harold Lloyd.
Davis’ 24-minute score for The Rink was composed in 2003 (rev. 2008) for seventeen players; the film tells the story of a clumsy waiter who nonetheless cuts a charismatic dash on roller-skates during his lunchbreak. One Week was Buster Keaton’s first independently produced film and tells the surreal story of a man trying to assemble a gifted DIY home from parts sabotaged by his rival; Davis's 22-minute score is full of stunning effects, suggesting the spinning house and other crazy Keaton stunts. Fairbanks’ 1929 part-talkie The Iron Mask is scored sumptuously over 103 minutes by Davis, including parts for harp and a substantial string section.
Davis’ scores for One Week and The Rink will be performed again in August at Klosters Music festival in Switzerland. At the end of April Davis’ ballet score Le Fantôme et Christine: A Ballet in Two Acts premieres at Shanghai International Dance Centre with the Shanghai Ballet. In June the National Ballet of Japan stage his Aladdin, choreographed by Sir David Bintley.