For Colin Davis

It continues here. The ever-questing, deep-thinking, profoundly musical English conductor died today at the age of eighty-five. Of many brilliant concerts, three are burned most strongly in my mind: his 2011 Missa Solemnis at Carnegie Hall, which seemed already to be emanating from the next world; his 2004 Peter Grimes, with a storm of unbelievable fury; and his 2004 rendition of Britten's Phaedra with the New York Philharmonic, in which Lorraine Hunt Lieberson gave what may have been her most uncanny performance, no doubt emboldened by the granitic solidity of the sound behind her. Like Charles Mackerras, Davis led music in such a way that it simply sounded right, in the rhythm of the heart.