SHOWBIZ TIME MAGAZINE. June Issue P.23 Cover of the Magazine Table of Contents
Sir Paul's oratorio
took nine years to complete.
Sir Paul McCartney has won the best album award at the Classical Brits for his fourth classical album Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart). The former Beatle saw off competition from artists including Sting, Katherine Jenkins, Alfie Boe and Bryn Terfel. The award was voted for by Classic FM listeners and readers of its magazine. "If you'd told me when I was a little boy growing up in Liverpool I'd be at the Albert Hall receiving this, I wouldn't have believed you," he said. "How proud my mum and dad would have been," he added, before jokingly singing an opera-style high note and leaving the stage at London's Royal Albert Hall where the ceremony took place. The Berlin Philharmonic and its conductor Sir Simon Rattle won the classical recording of the year award, receiving the honor for Holst's The Planets. Album of the year was the only award voted for by the public, with all the other awards chosen by classical music experts and critics. Sting had been short listed for his lute album Songs From the Labyrinth.
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Russian soprano Anna Netrebko was named singer of the year But he was beaten by Sir Paul, who began writing Ecce Cor Meum in 1997 but had to halt work after the death of his first wife Linda the following year. The oratorio in four movements with English and Latin lyrics was recorded last year at Abbey Road Studios in London and premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in November. But it received lukewarm reviews from classical critics. BBC Music Magazine described the work as "agreeably inoffensive but in no way sharply distinctive".
Sting (left) missed out on the best album award Lifetime achievement: Gramophone Magazine said it was a "pseudo-classical project... the result is a creakily Victorian four-parter, both short-winded and constipated, hopping disconcertingly from one episode to the next in shades of grey". Sir Paul's next pop album, Memory Almost Full, is out in June.
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Sarah Brightman presented the singer of the year award The Classical Brits ceremony was hosted by Fern Britton, with performances from several artists including nominees Jenkins, Sting and Boe. Sarah Brightman, who presented an award, turned up in an eye-catching feathered ballgown with huge platform shoes. The Duchess of Cornwall attended the event, her first royal engagement following her hysterectomy in March. "I've never been to this event before and I think it's fantastic," she said. George Fenton picked up the composer of the year award for his music for BBC documentary series Planet Earth. Violinist Ruth Palmer was named young British classical performer for her rendition of Shostakovich's violin concerto number one. Singer of the year went to Russian soprano Anna Netrebko. Palmer, who had no record deal after finishing her studies at the Royal Academy and the Royal College of Music, raised thousands of pounds and hired a concert orchestra to record the Shostakovich, her favorite piece of music. Other winners were Leif Ove Andsnes, who won instrumentalist of the year, and John Adams, named best contemporary composer. The critics' award went to the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the RIAS Kammerchoir and Rene Jacobs for Mozart's opera La Clemenza di Tito. Conductor Vernon Handley was presented with the lifetime achievement award.
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