Birmingham Choral Union
Sir Paul McCartney’s classical music work partly inspired by the death of his wife Linda is to have its Birmingham premiere this month.
The city’s first concert performance of Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart) will be staged at the Town Hall – where The Beatles played nearly half a century ago.
The hour-long oratorio will be performed on March 19 by Birmingham Choral Union (BCU), conducted by Colin Baines, with the Birmingham Choral Union Orchestra and Blue Coat School Choirs.
“It is very exciting to be staging the Birmingham premiere of Ecce Cor Meum, Sir Paul McCartney’s most recent classical music piece,” said BCU president Marian Dawes. “It is a beautiful, and in parts haunting, work and to be singing it in the glorious setting of the Town Hall is fantastic.”
As well as the McCartney piece, the concert will also feature Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem (Give Us Peace).
Ecce Cor Meum, which had its world premiere in 2006, is Sir Paul’s second oratorio, following Liverpool Oratorio of 1991. It was commissioned by Anthony Smith, then president of Magdalen College, Oxford, to mark the college’s 550th anniversary and to christen a new concert hall.
It took the former Beatle eight years to complete: He began in 1997, but when his first wife, Linda, died of breast cancer in 1998, he stopped writing for a year. He has said that his grief can be heard in the wordless Interlude (Lament) section of the four-movement work.
Reviewers of Ecce Cor Meum have described the oratorio as “an exquisite synergy of voice and instrument” that “achieves an austere impression while being accessible to anyone unfamiliar with the classical form”.
The Beatles played at Birmingham Town Hall only once – on June 4, 1963, during the group’s UK tour with American singer Roy Orbison.
- Tickets for the concert on Saturday, March 19 at 7.30pm cost £15 and are available from the Town Hall box office: 0121 780 3333 or www.thsh.co.uk
- For more information about Birmingham Choral Union, visit www.birminghamchoralunion.org.uk
