Word: liverpools
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...latest Englishman to have a go is Paul McCartney, the erstwhile "cute" Beatle and Wings captain, whose quasi-autobiographical Liverpool Oratorio is soaring on the classical charts (Angel/EMI Classics has shipped 350,000 copies of the two-CD album worldwide). Commissioned for the 150th anniversary of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, the 97-minute work for soloists, chorus and orchestra was first performed in McCartney's native city last July and recently got its U.S. premiere at New York City's Carnegie Hall...
...oratorio, the someone else was Carl Davis, an American-born film composer and accomplished pastiche artist. After McCartney wrote the text and invented the tunes, Davis arranged them slickly for soprano (Kiri Te Kanawa at the Liverpool premiere and on the recording), mezzo (Sally Burgess), tenor (Jerry Hadley), bass (Willard White), boy soprano, chorus, cathedral choir and full orchestra...
...result is a big, sprawling, high-minded and honorably intended work that never quite comes into focus. The story concerns a Liverpool boy named Shanty (no doubt a nod to the high percentage of Irish Liverpudlians as well as to McCartney's own ethnic background), born during the air raids of 1942 (Part 1, War). The second, third and fourth sections (School, Crypt and Father) detail typical adolescent angst, including the death of Shanty's dad. In the oratorio's second half, the hero meets Mary Dee, marries her (Wedding), impregnates her (Work), fights with her (Crises) and finally, after...
This is most clear late in the album, beginning with Will You Be There, a song that sounds a little like Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio and a lot like a spiritual scored for the first cathedral in outer space. Lush, sentimental sounds continue through the next two tunes before things settle back to the hard rhythm of Black or White. It's a virtuoso performance. Michael may wear his heart on his sleeve, but a fair portion of his soul, it seems, is still back in church. Sorry, Bart...
...resistance movements, however, received spectacular encouragement from the Allied strategic bombings of Germany. The British, still furious about the Luftwaffe's indiscriminate attacks on London and such targets as Coventry and Liverpool in the war's early days, launched gigantic carpet bombings of the Third Reich's industrial and urban centers. In May 1942 the R.A.F. sent the first 1,000-bomber mission over Germany, pulverizing 300 acres of central Cologne. The head of the bomber command, Air Marshal Arthur ("Bomber") Harris, told his men that if their mission succeeded, "the most shattering and devastating blow will have been delivered...