Working Classical

Back in November, I blogged about a new orchestral work by Paul McCartney called Ecce Cor Meum (click here to read the post), and I recently found an earlier CD of his lying around the house called Working Classical. I think that my wife must have bought it at some point. While not much of a classical music fan, she does like Paul McCartney.

The title is a cute pun on "working class", of course, and reflects McCartney's pride in his working class, Liverpool roots. The concept behind the album, which came out in 1999, was to orchestrate some of his best known and loved pop songs and reinterpret them in classical form.

There are also some new pieces, namely Haymakers, Midwife, Spiral and Tuesday. Just as he takes pride in his humble origins, he clearly takes pride in the classic songs that he's arranged for orchestra here, including such oldies but goodies as Maybe I'm Amazed and My Love.

The orchestrations are competent and the LSO gives it's usual fine performance, and it's really interesting to hear these tunes done over in a new idiom. It now has a place on my MP3 player, and I recommend the CD to any McCartney fan.