CRAZY-HORSE Wrote:

PAUL McCARTNEY "ecce cor meum" cd,2006.

God!, i dont know what to write about this one as im not a classical impressario,but here goes....
five tracks,total running time of some 56 minutes...
some nice choral vocals but i cannot understand what they are going on about,even when reading the inserted lyric sheet
not my kind of thing at all, guessing i bought it to keep my Macca collection complete
i cant score this one as there are little bits here and there within each track that i do like,likewise bits i do not like...
either way, you got to admire the guy for what he has achieved in 50yrs of music since "love me do" first hit the airwaves
so i'll give you the allmusic review and you can make up your own mind about it!

allmusic:

If only one of Paul McCartney's varied musical strengths carries his oratorio, Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart), it is his astonishing melodic talent: indeed, it is because of the piece's undeniable tunefulness that it is at all viable. This grandiose, neo-Romantic work for soprano, mixed choir, boy choir, and orchestra would seem unbearably tedious were it not for the chains of attractive themes that are laced throughout, and the monumental structure would collapse under its ponderous weight were it not for the light, lyrical touches that hold it up. McCartney the pop master is still the classical naïf who, by dint of his supreme self-confidence, believes he has the technical skill and artistic imagination to set his rambling, sentimental text with enough interesting material to hold the listener's attention for close to an hour. Yet the predominant tempos are slow to moderately slow, the orchestration is lackluster, and the textures are so thickly chordal that even McCartney's amateurish attempts at counterpoint bring welcome relief. The somber tone of a requiem is unmistakable throughout, and McCartney's gravitas is expressed through dark timbres and minor harmonies that seem borrowed from Mozart and Verdi; only in the third movement, "Musica," is the mood lightened to a bittersweet nostalgia, expressed through a poignant melody comparable to anything in McCartney's popular song catalog, and brightened with brass fanfares reminiscent of "Penny Lane." Yet the bulk of this overlong work is heavy going, and despite the best efforts of soprano Kate Royal, the London Voices, the combined boy choirs of Magdalen College, Oxford, and King's College, Cambridge, and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields under Gavin Greenaway, this oratorio comes off as a pretentious exercise with few worthwhile highpoints. EMI's sound is good, though better separation of parts might have made this recording more listenable.

tracks:

1. spiritus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMRnfqkBNIo audio
2. gratia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E41dcCCw3l4 audio
3. interlude/lament
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k75AnPnwRyU audio
4. musica
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGF_1z2dTJU audio
5. ecce cor meum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH1G1Vd7FHk audio

CRAZY-HORSE Wrote:i have done that SteveO...he's not answering his emails, i know he and his wife have a newborn in the house now, but i'd have thought he'd have at least checked his inbox by now.