Colin Davis, one of the most acclaimed British conductors of the 20th century, who brought immense authority and an almost palpable zest to his music-making on both sides of the Atlantic, died on Sunday. He was 85.

The London Symphony Orchestra announced his death without specifying the cause. Mr. Davis had been its longest-serving principal conductor, from 1995 until 2006, when Valery Gergiev took his place, and its president since 2007.

Mr. Davis, who lived in London, was one of a generation of distinguished conductors — among them Bernard Haitink, Kurt Masur and Wolfgang Sawallisch — who started out shortly before or soon after World War II. His passions ranged from Mozart to the 20th-century English composer Michael Tippett — anything, in fact, in which he could find joy and energy, the breath and muscle of life.

But he will almost certainly be remembered most for two phases of his career, both well documented in recordings: that of his late 30s and 40s, when he revealed the full excitement of Berlioz, and that of his 60s and beyond, when, as if traveling on through the Romantic period, he arrived at compelling performances of Bruckner and Dvorak, Elgar and Sibelius.