Cast in the traditional oratorio form, the work has eight movements and lasts some 95 minutes. The text is Paul McCartney’s own. Its story draws on the events of his early life in Liverpool, the large port in the north of England which, with the emergence of The Beatles in the 1960’s, attracted world-wide attention as a centre of pop culture. McCartney’s birth in the city during wartime, his schooldays at the Liverpool Institute and youthful aspirations – these are the starting points for a work that poignantly and vividly articulates the hopes and joys and crises of life in the modern world. Liverpool Oratorio was commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society to celebrate its 150th anniversary.
