''Working Classical'' is

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...

's third full-length release of original classical music as a double LP and as a single CD, and was issued less than a month after '' Run Devil Runs release in 1999.

Background and recording

Following up on 1997's '' Standing Stone'', the concept behind ''Working Classical'' was to place pre-existing (and in some cases, very well known) McCartney songs into an orchestral context. Specially for this project, McCartney also unveiled some new pieces, namely "Haymakers", "Midwife", "Spiral" and "Tuesday". A different performance of " A Leaf" was originally released on 21 April 1995 on a CD single, and is presented here in a new recording. Performing the new arrangements are the

London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orc ...

and the Loma Mar Quartet, with special orchestrations arranged by noted musicians

Richard Rodney Bennett Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (29 March 193624 December 2012) was an English composer of film, TV and concert music, and also a jazz pianist and occasional vocalist. He was based in New York City from 1979 until his death there in 2012.Zachary Woo ...

Jonathan Tunick Jonathan Tunick (born April 19, 1938, New York City) is an American orchestrator, musical director, and composer, and one of seventeen " EGOTs" - people to have won all four major American showbusiness awards: the Tony Awards, Academy Awards, Em ...

and Andy Stein.''Working Classical'' album notes
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Album title

The title of this project is a pun on the phrase "working class", in the sense that McCartney, despite his elevated stature, still cherishes his

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

roots and is proud of them. Mirroring this ideology is his pride in his

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm a ...

songs and willingness to transfer them into the "elevated" classical music genre.

Release and reception

''Paul McCartney's Working Classical'' was another success in that genre, even though this time it failed to dent the regular US album charts, and was better received critically than his previous effort, '' Standing Stone''. His subsequent forays into the classical realm are 2006's ''

Ecce Cor Meum ''Ecce Cor Meum'' (Latin for ''Behold My Heart'') is the fourth classical album by Paul McCartney. The album was released on 25 September 2006 by EMI Classics. An oratorio in four movements, it is produced by John Fraser, written in Latin and En ...

'' and 2011's '' Ocean's Kingdom''.

Track listing

All pieces by

. #" Junk" – 2:49 #" A Leaf" – 11:08 #"Haymakers" – 3:33 #"Midwife" – 3:33 #"Spiral" – 10:02 #"

Warm and Beautiful "Warm and Beautiful" is a love ballad credited to Paul and Linda McCartney that was first released by Wings on their 1976 album '' Wings at the Speed of Sound''. It is a love ballad sung by Paul directed to Linda. Critical opinion of the song has ...

" – 2:31 #" My Love" – 3:48 #"

Maybe I'm Amazed "Maybe I'm Amazed" is a song written by English musician Paul McCartney that was first released on his 1970 debut solo album ''McCartney''. Although the original recording has never been released as a single, a live performance by McCartney's l ...

" – 2:04 #"

Calico Skies "Calico Skies" is the sixth song on Paul McCartney's 1997 album, '' Flaming Pie''. McCartney had been staying on Long Island when the category-three storm Hurricane Bob that made landfall had hit in August 1991. This made McCartney sit with an ...

" – 1:52 #" Golden Earth Girl" – 1:57 #" Somedays" – 3:05 #"Tuesday" – 12:26 #" She's My Baby" – 1:47 #" The Lovely Linda" – 0:54

References

{{Authority control 1999 classical albums Paul McCartney albums