Standing Stone (album)
1997 studio album by Paul McCartney and London Symphony Orchestra
Standing Stone is Paul McCartney's second full-length release of original classical music (coming after 1991's Liverpool Oratorio), although he defined it as orchestral music. It was issued shortly after the release of Flaming Pie. The world premiere performance was held at The Royal Albert Hall on 14 October 1997.
History
Following up on 1991's Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio, the Standing Stone project was composed out of a long poem McCartney authored to describe the way Celtic man might have wondered about the origins of life and the mystery of existence. McCartney composed the work as a commission from Richard Lyttleton, the then president of EMI Classics, to celebrate EMI's centenary. Unlike Liverpool Oratorio, the project was not an operatic performance of a story, but an instrumental one, though employing the use of a choir.
For the first time in his career, McCartney used a personal computer and software to help compose. The work was recorded by the 80-piece London Symphony Orchestra, a 120-member choir, and conducted by Lawrence Foster at EMI's Abbey Road Studios. Standing Stone was engineered by John Kurlander and mixed and edited at Hog Hill Mill Studios, McCartney's private studio in Sussex, England.
It was released on compact disc which included a 48-page booklet.
“Standing Stone (album)” enters the record as 1997 studio album by Paul McCartney and London Symphony Orchestra. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Standing, Stone and album can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1933003. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1991 and 1997.
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