Search - Paul McCartney, Gavin Greenaway, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields :: Paul McCartney: Ecce Cor Meum

Are we listening to the same piece of music?

C. Cleveland | Dryden, NY United States | 08/03/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"How can I be listening to the same piece of music that another reviewer here finds "vapid" and "uneventful"? That is the question I ask myself, and the only answer I've been able to think of is, perhaps, that the other reviewer is looking for Hamlet set to music. Five acts of increasing tension released by a bloodbath in the fifth act. That would certainly be a fun and perhaps worthwhile musical project, but Hamlet's agony has little to do with what McCartney is trying to do in this oratorio. McCartney's trying to live, not die.



This work, as anyone who considers the lyrics, much less the music, will recognize, is a set of meditations on matters spiritual, material, personal, and musical. It is a highly confessional and personal look at the heart and mind that make Paul McCartney tick. The lyrics consider the questions of how to find light and spirit and love in your life. The answer is that you pray, and praying loudly and demandingly is okay with McCartney. There is spirit in the world, and you can connect with it. If your connection is sound, it will bring you all the treasures of life and love and successful communication of your heart. Ecce Cor Meum is full of climaxes, and excitement, and tempo and mood changes. There are contrapuntal passages liberally strewed throughout the work, and there are gorgeous instrumental colors, and lonely voices plaintively singing their way out of gloom and darkness and despair into light and joy and forward motion. It does not have architectural structure, but it is in constant spiritual and musical motion.



"Let the good that surrounds us help us to always care." "Take love away and we are ruined." Lead us "into the light of your sweet song." "There in the future we may be apart. Here in my music I show you my heart."



The piece is undoubtedly colored by the death of Linda McCartney in the middle of its composition, and what McCartney learned of finding the light again, and how to react to making mistakes while looking for the light. The personal credo expressed in this composition has been tested by the worst that could happen to this particular composer, and he uses his own dark night of the soul to strengthen his personal philosophy of love, light, music, and positive action.



What it is not is uneventful and vapid, unless you think that love doesn't exist, that there is no such thing as spirit, and that music is primarily for entertainment. Music can save your soul, McCartney sings, and his soloist and choirs sing convincingly. The music reaches, and surges, and batters down the gates of heaven on earth.



I can easily understand those who have reported that they listen to the piece over and over again. It's heartening, it's exciting, it's seriously melodic and wildly expressive. Ecce Cor Meum is just one man's testimony to what's important in life, but the man in question is one of the most talented and inventive musicians around."

Paul McCartney: Ecce Cor Meum

Anthony F. Marshall | Chapel Hill, NC USA | 10/26/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Paul is a natural. I love his music. This Classical piece is I think his best, it brought tears to my eyes."

Paul and Ecce Cor Meum

Jerry | La Mesa, CA USA | 05/08/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is by far Paul's very best classical work to date. A loving tribute to Linda McCartney and their lives together. A must for any Macca Collector!"