McCartney tops Sting in Classical Brit awards

By Arifa Akbar
Friday, 4 May 2007

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Purists have mocked it as "easy listening soup", but Sir Paul McCartney's modern choral oratorio emerged triumphant from the classical music industry's most prestigious awards ceremony last night.

The former Beatle's musical change of direction paid off when Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart), partly sung in Latin and recorded with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, earned him the Album of the Year accolade at the Classical Brit awards, which will be televised on ITV1 a week on Sunday. He had been up against Sting, who has recently crossed over into classical terrain with his album of 16th-century lute music, Songs from the Labyrinth, featuring the music of John Dowland, a melancholic Elizabethan-era composer, and accompaniment from the Bosnian lute player Edin Karamazov.

Picking up his award, Sir Paul said: "It's such a huge honour for me to get this. If you'd told me as a kid in Liverpool that I would be at the Royal Albert Hall picking up an award I would not have believed you. How proud would my mum and dad have been if they had known this could happen?''

Sir Paul's album, released last year and written, in part, as a tribute to his late wife, Linda, gained some harsh reviews from the critics, but others have praised it for reviving the flagging sales of classical music and adding a touch of glamour to the genre.

The idea for the album came to Sir Paul about eight years ago, but it was only cemented after hearing choirboys at Magdalen chapel in Oxford and at a Tavener concert in a church where, beneath a crucifix, he spotted the words "Ecce Cor Meum".

The Album of the Year was chosen by listeners of Classic FM. Sir Paul was also up against the Welsh singer Katherine Jenkins, who has won the category twice before, and the 19-year-old violinist Nicola Benedetti.

Although she was nominated for three awards, Benedetti, a former BBC Young Musician of the Year, failed to win. The Young British Classical Performer prize, for which she was in the running, went instead to the violinist Ruth Palmer, and she also lost out to the Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, who was named Instrumentalist of the Year.

Geoff Taylor, the chief executive of the British Phonographic Institute, which organises the awards, said: "Not only does it recognise well-known classical stars and emerging talents for vibrant new interpretations of established works, it celebrates 'crossover' artists who are introducing the classical idiom to new audiences."

The only previous instances of a non-classical artist being nominated for a Classical Brit were when the Pink Floyd guitarist Roger Waters was included on the shortlist last year, and when the techno-classicist William Orbit was included in 2001.

George Fenton, the composer of the evocative music for the BBC's wildlife series Planet Earth, scooped the Soundtrack of the Year prize. Other winners included the Welsh conductor Dr Vernon Handley, who received a lifetime achievement award for his work with the London, Amsterdam and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras.

The winners

Young British Classical Performer:

Ruth Palmer - Shostakovich/Violin Concerto No 1

Singer Of The Year:

Anna Netrebko - Russian Album & Violetta

Classical Recording Of The Year:

Berliner Philharmoniker/Sir Simon Rattle - Holst/The Planets

Soundtrack Composer Of The Year:

George Fenton - Planet Earth

Instrumentalist Of The Year:

Leif Ove Andsnes - Horizons

Lifetime Achievement: