Nelson Freire as soloist. During his time with the LSO, both as principal conductor and later as president, Davis conducted series and cycles of the music of Sibelius, Berlioz, Bruckner, Mozart, Elgar, Beethoven, and Brahms, and in 2009 began presenting a cycle of the symphonies of Carl Nielsen. Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians wrote: "He conducted a Sibelius cycle in 1992 and a concert performance of Les Troyens the following year, both of which have become the stuff of legend. More recently he has added grand performances of Bruckner, Richard Strauss and Elgar, the première of Tippett's last major work, The Rose Lake (1995), and a Berlioz cycle begun with Benvenuto Cellini in 1999 and crowned by an incandescent Les Troyens in December 2000, all confirming his partnership with the LSO as one of the most important of its time." Teacher Davis was president of the Landesgymnasium für Musik "Carl Maria von Weber" in Dresden, and held the International Chair of Orchestral Studies at the Royal Academy of Music, London. Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, principal of the academy, wrote of Davis: "As the Academy's International Chair of Conducting over 25 years, Sir Colin helmed six opera productions and over sixty concerts, classes and chamber music projects. Such extraordinary generosity from a major international conductor is surely unique. He inspired a whole generation here, as did Henry Wood and John Barbirolli before him." Recordings Davis's discography is extensive, numbering over 300 recordings. He made his first record in 1958 conducting the Sinfonia of London in performances of Mozart's Symphonies 29 and 39 for World Record Club (TZ 130). This was followed on 8 May 1959 by a recording made in Kingsway Hall, London, for Decca with the New Symphony Orchestra of London and pianist Peter Katin performing Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor Op. 18. He made several records for the small independent label L'Oiseau Lyre, including a 1960 L'enfance du Christ and a 1962 Béatrice et Bénédict which, at April 2013, were both still available on CD. For EMI he made both operatic and orchestral recordings, the former with Sadler's Wells forces, including excerpts from Carmen and a complete Oedipus rex, and the latter including Harold in Italy with Yehudi Menuhin, and what remains one of his best-known recordings, a 1961 Beethoven Seventh Symphony. Philips and RCA In the 1960s, Davis signed as an exclusive artist for Philips Records,