Paul McCartney To Release New Classical Work 'Ecce Cor Meum'
Release Date: 26th September 2006

Paul McCartney releases his new full-length work of classical music Ecce Cor
Meum through EMI Classics on 26th September 2006. Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My
Heart) is Paul's fourth classical album since his first released in 1991, The
Liverpool Oratorio.

Ecce Cor Meum has been more than eight years in the making and its origins
follow in the historic tradition of composers that have been commissioned to
write music for the world-renowned Magdalen College Oxford. Paul was specially
invited by Anthony Smith (President of Magdalen College 1998 - 2005) to compose
something to set the seal on a new concert hall for the college. His hope was
for 'a choral piece which could be sung by young people the world over in the
same way that Handel's Messiah is'.

Ecce Cor Meum, an Oratorio in four movements, is scored for choir and orchestra.
The text combines both English and to a lesser degree, Latin. Paul's knowledge
of Latin comes from his classical education at The Liverpool Institute High
School for Boys, where he had learnt three languages by the time he was 12.
Paul says: "Not all of this has been retained over the years as my path went in
other directions, but my love of language remains, and as Latin is known and
sung by choirs all over the world, I felt it would be appropriate to use at
times during the piece."

Like many great composers Paul, started with the music and then looked for a
subject that fits. Several ideas for lyrics occurred to him, but they only
gelled when he took part in a concert of John Tavener's music in the Church of
St Ignatius Loyola in New York. "While I was waiting to do my bit, I was
looking around the church and I saw a statue, and underneath it was written
'Ecce Cor Meum'. I had done some Latin at school and I always had a fondness
for it. So I worked it out. I believe it means Behold My Heart".

In November 2001, the first version of Ecce Cor Meum was given its first preview
performance by the Magdalen College Choir, which was conducted by Bill Ives at
the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford. This was a great learning experience for Paul.
"Eventually I made it all come together through correcting a lot of
misapprehensions - a lot was learned before the Sheldonian performance, but a
lot of it was learned afterwards. An experienced choral composer knows that
children can't be given huge sustained passages; they don't have the energy and
the stamina. At the Sheldonian there was some quite hard stuff that I didn't
realise because I'd done it on the synthesiser (which has endless stamina!), but
during that first performance, the solo treble couldn't come on for the second
half - I think I'd used him up in the first half! These are things that people
either learn because they are taught them immediately at the first lesson or you
learn through the years, so it was good to go through the piece a lot of times,
and we took out huge choral sections and gave them to the orchestra. If it had
been a Beatles song I would have known how to do it. But this was a completely
different ball game."

Produced by John Fraser, Ecce Cor Meum was recorded this year at the legendary
Abbey Road Studios between March 13th and 17th. It was performed by EMI artist
Kate Royal (soprano); The Boys of King's College Choir, Cambridge; The Boys Of
Magdalen College Choir, Oxford and The Academy Of St Martin In The Fields
conducted by Gavin Greenway.

Contact: cinemediapromo@...


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]