Standing Stone

by

Paul McCartney

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If music were only a form of high-level mathmatical play, or if it were a game with set rules, the violation of which should and would disqualify you from play, then the task of music critics would be easy. But there are no rules, as far as I can tell: there is only taste in the kind of sounds you can make and call music. What music is actually about is emotion--music is about moving your audience, about touching one or a combination of the spectrum of human emotions. And Paul McCartney has been doing that since he finished the melody to When I'm Sixty-four at the age of sixteen.

Now, the form of Standing Stone is a symphonic, or orchestral poem. That means that the music is meant to tell a story, and to me it does. I had been listening to the music in fascination and admiration for at least six months before I read the poem the composer provides to tell the story in another form. The Standing Stone Poem is great fun--you can feel the author relishing the musical qualities of the language as he plays it like an instrument to tell his tale. The tale is about the dawn of everything, including human beings, it is about adventure, peril, triumph, and the joy and serenity that follow bloodless but real victory. The various sections of Standing Stone are chapters in a story told in orchestral and wordless vocal sound until the last section, Celebration, which includes a song with words.

So, I sugggest that formal training in music has nothing to do with the quality of a piece of music. Some musicians got together one day and invented rock 'n roll, and they did not have to present diplomas from Juilliard to do it. The symphonic form or lack thereof has nothing to do with the quality of a piece. Having enough confidence to make up a form to fit the musical composition you want to complete *may* have something to do with its quality.

I am told by one person knowlegable in music theory that McCartney has been breaking "rules" for a very long time. So, what you are dealing with in Standing Stone and in all other McCartney compositions, is McCartney's taste in sounds. I found the piece mesmerizing, rewarding, and very moving. You may too.

McCartney works best in short form...some of his best songs like Admiral Halsey or Band on the Run are the skilled fusion of 2 or more melodies...McCartney and Lennon did this in a A Day in A Life...which is their magnum opus...however, Standing Stone just doesn't go anywhere until the finale...it may have made a good film score, but as a classical piece, it doesn't go anywhere...there are some neat melodic shifts here and there, and I give it 2 stars for the lilting finale...it is definitely a step ahead of the absolutley tedious Oratorio...I think that his next classical project, composed of several shorter works will prove to be the most listenable as they are not long ambitious works....we'll see....