Liverpool Oratorio

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Track list

Disc 1

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Disc 2

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About

For years I have been flirting with classical music. On Yesterday I had a string quartet and on Eleanor Rigby we had used string players so I always enjoyed the experience. And, in the back of my mind, there was always this thought that if I ever get a great offer to do something big in the classical world, I’d leap at it. So, the Liverpool people rang up and asked me to do this for their 150th anniversary. So it was my hometown orchestra, it was to be performed in the cathedral, which is right next door to the school where I did all my schooling and it was in an area of a million great memories for me. I always had the idea that I might do this one day so I just leapt at the offer and said, ‘OK, in two years’ time we’ll deliver. Carl Davis and myself will deliver something that you can celebrate your 150th anniversary with.’

Paul McCartney

From Wikipedia:

Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio is a live album by Paul McCartney released in 1991 and his first major foray into classical music. Composed in collaboration with Carl Davis to commemorate The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s 150th anniversary, the project received a large amount of media attention upon its unveiling in June 1991.

Recording

This recording was captured at the oratorio’s dress rehearsal and premiere at Liverpool Cathedral with McCartney in attendance and features noted professional classical singers Kiri Te Kanawa, Jerry Hadley, Sally Burgess and Willard White re-enacting the roles in the oratorio. The recording was engineered by John Timperley.

Music and story

Consisting of eight movements, the story of the oratorio loosely follows McCartney’s own lifeline, with the main character, Shanty, who is born in 1942 in Liverpool, raised to believe that “being born where you are born carries with it certain responsibilities”. After his school days where he often “sagged off” (Liverpool slang for skipping class), Shanty began working and meets his future bride, Mary Dee. Following the death of his father, Shanty and Mary Dee are married and are forced to deal with the rigours of balancing a happy marriage and their careers. Amid a quarrel, Mary Dee reveals that she is pregnant and after surviving a nearly fatal accident, gives birth to their son. Thus, the cycle of life in Liverpool carries on.

Reception

The commercial reaction for the work was strong, with the oratorio spending many weeks atop the classical charts worldwide, and even charting at number 177 in regular album chart in the US. Critical reaction was less positive, the virtually unanimous verdict being that the work, while attractive, was simplistic, overlong and, given its aspirations, insubstantial.

My own special slant on this whole affair was to have tried to learn musical notation at particular intervals in my life but never to have lasted the course. At some point the marks on the page failed to match up to what I was hearing, so eventually I made the music and someone else wrote it down.

Since jumping aboard the music caravan as a teenager at the end of the fifties my journey has been, to say the least, an interesting one. Different musical styles, always emerging, are not what seem to last, but more an overall feeling of “good music”. Beatles, Beethoven, Beach Boys, Bach, Hendrix, Handel, Tchaikovsky, The Who: the list is endless and all of them have something in common.

Further down this long and musical road I am excited to have been asked by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, with Carl Davis, to write something for their celebrations. It’s a perfect excuse for me to expand my previous flirtatious excursions into the orchestral and choral works into a full-blown work.

Paul McCartney – from the liner notes of the Liverpool Oratorio

Last updated on July 9, 2019