Paul McCartney’s latest pseudo-classical project, conceived during the illness of his first wife to a commission from Oxford’s Magdalen College, was previewed in November 2001. On his own admission it wasn’t an unalloyed success. Sir Paul is typically disarming about his lack of expertise, steadfastly refusing to master written notation in the belief that musical literacy might constrict his imagination. Then he has to go and spoil it all by declaring hubristically: “If it had been a Beatles song I would have known how to do it.” In truth none of the ex-Beatles proved able to recapture that particular formula.

On the new disc it sounds as if the composer has dispensed with the distinguished backroom helpers who buffed the surfaces of Standing Stone (EMI, 11/97). The result is a creakily Victorian four-parter (with interlude), both short-winded and constipated, hopping disconcertingly from one episode to the next in shades of grey.

The work begins slowly and gloweringly like an ungrammatical Brahms Requiem while the main body of the opening movement is a jauntier processional. Pretty McCartneyesque melodic squibs give the second panel greater appeal and continuity and this is the bit one would expect to be aired on Classic FM. Even here the persistent artlessness of the writing gives rise to the bunching of parts in the middle register with only a Penny Lane-ish trumpet suggesting the presence of a practised colourist. There follows a wordless interlude of sub-VW, derivative and broken-backed, to be sure, yet oddly poignant.

The ambitious third section seems a sclerotic muddle even if there’s a proper tune in there somewhere. The fourth starts well with a wordless arioso for Kate Royal. All too quickly this is followed by the “Ecce cor meum” idea. I was expecting a grandly aspirational tune in the Bernstein/Lloyd Webber/Vangelis manner but this is a cramped albeit adequately melodic shape in the vein of John Tavener. So far so good, but as section follows section the spirits droop: the surprise organ intervention reminded me that I could have been listening to Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass, which crams more life into a single bar than McCartney manages in nearly an hour.

It isn’t clear precisely what the piece is or who it’s for. While the players occasionally sound nonplussed at the directionlessness of it all, the choirs, enunciating with extraneous Anglican fervour, do what they can. The conductor is Gavin Greenaway, an experienced film man. Beatles completists have been warned!