Paul McCartney: Ecce Cor Meum | 
| Creators: Paul Mccartney, Gavin Greenaway, David Theodore, Academy Of St. Martin-in-the-fields, Colm Carey, Mark Law, Kate Royal
Label: EMI Classics
Category: Music
List Price: $18.98
Buy New: $9.00
You Save: $9.98 (53%)
New (29) Used (19) Collectible (1) from $2.98
Rating:  40 reviews
Sales Rank: 33267
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 70424
UPC: 094637042427
EAN: 0094637042427
ASIN: B000HC2NL0
Release Date: September 26, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Tracks:
| • | Ecce Cor Meum: I. Spiritus | | • | Ecce Cor Meum: II. Gratia | | • | Ecce Cor Meum: Interlude (Lament) | | • | Ecce Cor Meum: III. Musica | | • | Ecce Cor Meum: IV. Ecce Cor Meum |
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Paul McCartney's new "classical" oratorio is called Ecce Cor Meum, which translates as "Behold My Heart." The idealistic texts, also by McCartney, are meditations on goodness, spirituality, peace, and love, and are well served by the pretty, Romantic melodies; the long choral and orchestral sections flow one into the next. The Interlude (composed after the death of his wife, Linda), with its lovely oboe solo, is simple and moving. The music builds throughout to an emotional climax and the entrance of the organ later in the work--beautifully played and handsomely recorded--is quite remarkable. This is a far more advanced work than 1991's Liverpool Oratorio: better orchestrated, more through-composed. No, it's not the last word in compositional sophistication, but it has many beautiful moments, and McCartney's legions of fans will need to own it. --Robert Levine
Album Details
Limited Deluxe Version packaged in 60 page hardback book with metallic foil embossing. The book includes notes, lyrics and extra photos. Originally commissioned by Magdalen College Oxford to commemorate the 550th anniversary of the foundation of the College in 1998, Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart) is an oratorio written for Magdalen College Choir by Sir Paul Mccartney. It is scored for choir and orchestra and there are four movements, each of which begins with unaccompanied voices and the text combines both English and Latin. This is McCartney's fourth album on the EMI Classics label - and it has been a labour of love with more than eight years in the making.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 35 more reviews...
 The Multitalented Paul McCartney's Celestial CD September 29, 2006
Brien Comerford (Glenview, Illinois United States)
22 out of 27 found this review helpful
This choral and classical instrumental gem is profoundly spiritual and captivating. The lyrics yearn with idealism, the choirs are celestial and the orchestra is equally uplifting and replete with pathos. The Interlude track is a melancholic marvel relating to the sad death of Linda McCartney. I was shocked to hear how much more advanced Paul McCartney has become in the realm of classical music. Ecce Cor Meum is vastly superior to Liverpool Oratorio and it surpasses the respectable Standing Stone. I am a rock music fan but I listened to Ecce Cor Meum four consectutive times last night. After the third play I was convinced that this CD's grandeur, pathos and spirituality combined to make it a masterpiece. The lyrics are sanctifying as they accentuate that our innate nature is laden with a universal love that we need to rediscover. McCartney's spirituality is profound. Paul is a Sir, a Beatle, a great vocalist, a dynamic bass player, a painter, a vegetarian, an animal rights activist and now he is a bona fide Classical composer.
Classical Music From a Class Act October 8, 2006
BeatleBangs1964 (United States)
19 out of 23 found this review helpful
After years traveling down his Long & Winding Road that led to this collection, it was well worth the wait. Paul McCartney has turned his travails into triumph; his challenges into championships.
Paul has proved to be a musical peer among many, including Tony Bennett with whom he does an excellent duet; those well established in choral work such as Walton, Bax and others of their caliber.
Never able to dodge that Beatle influence which has long become part of so many other songs and forms of music, Paul appears to embrace it. He plays Beatle songs at all of his concerts and even this vastly different collection retains just a hint of that old Beatle magic that made Paul a household name.
By that I mean that Paul remains true to his musical muse; his songs are identified by his warm, ballad-like style and soft sentimentality that softens the cynical edges of an otherwise jaded world. He breathes fresh life and animus into this music; it is this coupled with his own style that pull it off effectively.
One thing that struck me about this poignant collection is the strong spiritual aspect. Paul McCartney maintains an optimistic outlook while beseeching people to look to their goodness within.
This is a very serious collection. This is, I believe, Paul McCartney's core values and beliefs. It is this seeking, finding and reinforcing the goodness in ourselves and others that makes this so unique.
This is a collection that you will want to have. It is very soothing and some of the songs make me think of the Christmas Mass.
Paul McCartney is like his own 1967 classic - getting better all the time. This work is proof positive of that.
MELODIC ORCHESTRAL STUFF, but Paul still needs a lyricist November 2, 2006
G. Engler (The Frigid Northeast)
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
It's pretty, it's sincere, and in parts it's actually quite moving. But like Red Rose Speedway, Wings At The Speed of sound, or Driving Rain - - don't read the lyrics. It doesn't quite translate as an equivalent to the Brahms Requiem.
Lyrics run along the lines of
Where could we run to/Where would we hide
Where would we run to/Where would we hide
Where would we run to - hide?
Our love/our love
strengthen our love/strengthen our love
our love/our love.
Worse still -
We may find a trace / of this state of grace
In the saddest face
Something is there
How the rivers flow
We may never know
But it goes to show
Something is there
The man has always been a great melodist, but remember, he also gave us obladi - oblada - life goes on bra
as well as you say yes, I say no, you say stop, and I say go go go. Oh. You say goodbye and I say hello.
Still, it's his melodies that have caused me to line my record, and later CD, shelves with everything from McCartney, to all the live mujlti disc sets, right up to Chaos and Confusion.
If you can get past the text, you may still enjoy this. It's probably as close as we'll ever get to seeing into McCartney's soul. Which is substantial.
I love this album! September 30, 2006
neptune (Illinois)
12 out of 15 found this review helpful
This is an incredible album...one of love, love lost, and spirituality.
It's incredibly beautiful in composition and production.
Paul continues to outdo himself, and shows what a truly masterful sonfwriter he is. Movement II (Gratia) is my favorite. I play it continually, and it never fails to hit a spiritual nerve in my body.
This is an excellent album by the world's foremost songwriter.
Long live Sir Paul!
 vapid and uneventful November 21, 2006
Brian Linnell (Omaha, Nebraska)
35 out of 48 found this review helpful
Those who have kept up with Saturday Night Live over the years will recall any number of comedic skits that worked very well as two- or three-minute shorts on the show, but when expanded into full-length feature films were tedious and ineffective.
That's a good comparison for McCartney's oratorio here. There are passages that are quite effective, and nicely done; here and there, for thirty seconds or so at a time, you think hey, this isn't bad. The problem is that this piece lasts a full hour, and like those SNL skits it just doesn't hold up when expanded to these proportions. There's no formal or structural integrity, no large-scale dramatic rise and fall, or ebb and flow. Rather, we have the simple song forms with which McCartney is familiar (AABA, etc.) expanded ad absurdum (AAAAAAABBBBAAAAAA, etc.).
One of my convictions about lengthy musical works is that they must justify their own duration. There has to be a really good and self-evident reason for piece of music to last twenty, forty, or sixty minutes, for it is entirely possible to present a thoroughly satisfying musical experience (to present multiple musical ideas, develop them, bring a sense of resolution towards the end, and close things out) inside of three or four minutes. This can be seen in the best popular songwriting, in a great deal of jazz improvisation, in classical miniatures such as the Chopin etudes and nocturnes for piano, etc. Ecce Cor Meum wholly fails on this count, then: there is simply no good reason for it to last so long, no skillful development of ideas or meaningful build and then release of dramatic tension.
Furthermore, while there are indeed some effective passages here, a great deal of the writing is also flat and artless. McCartney does not and cannot write counterpoint, which is the essence of choral music; instead, Ecce Cor Meum utilizes a sort of a lead singer/backup singers construction, like what you'd expect to find in a pop song. Occasionally there's a little call and response, a few instances of two- or three-part voice leading, but otherwise the choral and orchestral textures are simplistic and empty. It's such a wasted opportunity to gather a choir of hundreds of voices, as McCartney does here, only to have them all singing pretty much the same thing at the same time.
I really don't mean to be too harsh. There's nothing WRONG with this music. It isn't unpleasant. But in tackling a form like the oratorio, McCartney is placing himself in direct comparison to history's master composers and great musical geniuses, and unfortunately he falls far, far short of them. For all its pleasant moments this is vapid, uneventful music.
|
|
|
