The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1936 and since then has hosted most of the world s greatest conductors and soloists. In 2002, on the occasion of the Annual Concert in Memory of Yitzhak Rabin, the orchestra... more » performed a rarely played piece written by Ex-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney. Standing Stone is a 75-minute symphonic poem based on a Celtic legend written by McCartney himself. There are elements of landscape music from the classic English tradition, passages of high musical drama by way of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, jazz sensibilities, and sentimental melodies straight out of Hollywood. Revealing a lot of McCartney's personality, the epic-musical fantasia Standing Stone shows just how far Sir Paul has come from simple three-chord love songs. The oeuvre was given its world premiere performance in 1997 by the London Symphony Orchestra with Lawrence Foster conducting and it is again Foster who is conducting the Israeli Philharmonics here.
As special feature the DVD offers artist biographies in four languages.« less