Working classical.

WE will glance at three composers, starting with one of the most successful of our time--indeed, of all time: Paul McCartney. Belonged to a British band, some years back. Composed such hits as "Penny Lane" and "Yesterday." For about 15 years, he has been messing with classical music, or semi-classical music. In 1991, he wrote his Liverpool Oratorio (in collaboration with the composer Carl Davis). In 1999, he brought out an album with the endearing title Working Classical.

And his latest classical opus is Ecce Cor Meum. You will find it on a disc from EMI Classics. This, too, is an oratorio, and its title means "Behold My Heart." The work was commissioned by Magdalen College, Oxford, which wanted a piece for its new concert hall. The college president said he hoped for "a choral piece which could be sung by young people the world over--something equivalent to Handel's Messiah." Is that all?

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McCartney has written a little essay for the CD's booklet, and it is absolutely charming. He says that writing the oratorio "was a great learning experience for me." He has never had a lesson in composition, he explains, and has had to figure everything out for himself. But he trusts in his talent, his "subconscious."

By the way, do you know the famous tale about Gershwin and Ravel? Gershwin cables Ravel, asking for composition lessons. Ravel answers, "How much money did you make last year?" Gershwin replies, "A million dollars." Ravel cables, "May I have lessons from you?"

Ecce Cor Meum is in five sections, and it involves large forces: an orchestra, a choir, a children's choir, a solo soprano, and an organ. The texts are in English and Latin, though mostly in English. McCartney wrote these, as well as the music. The texts are simple, along the lines of "Although life sometimes is hard, we still pull through."

Another essay in the booklet--not by McCartney, but quoting him--makes clear that the composer is spiritual, not religious. We must banish all thoughts of religion, which reeks of "my god's better than yours," according to Paul. (McCartney, I mean, not the Bible's Paul.) "Religion, the way I was taught it, had a lot of uncomfortable things in it," says the composer. And Ecce Cor Meum is not uncomfortable.

The music, like the words, is simple. It is often chipper, bright, and pretty. "Pretty" is a terrible putdown in most critics' vocabulary, but not in mine, necessarily. And McCartney undeniably knows how to write a melody. He has said, "I always feel the ability to sit down anywhere, anytime, and craft a melody"--lucky guy.

And yet the oratorio sometimes becomes insipid and cloying--a little Muzak-like. And the last section, in particular, features some very ill-advised composing. A madman-at-the-organ explosion is ridiculous. McCartney commits (unintentional) parody here. And when he at last ends the oratorio, he does so pompously, bangingly, losing his sweet gift.

But the work, as a whole, has a sincerity about it--an innocence, a freedom from guile--that cannot be gainsaid. McCartney may lack sophistication, but he also lacks pretension. He has found a way to blend the popular and the classical. Other British composers have done this, too: I think of Rachel Portman and Karl Jenkins. You could even say that these people make up a school.

A friend of mine pointed out that, of the four Beatles, Paul was the most interested in the avant-garde--and that, despite this, Ecce Cor Meum could have been written before 1900. That may be. But Paul's devotion to beauty is refreshing, and although he is no Handel (of course), wouldn't you like to have written "Penny Lane"? I would.

* There is no more celebrated classical composer today than John Adams, brought up in New England, long resident in the San Francisco Bay area. New York's Lincoln Center devoted an entire festival to him. The conductor Marin Alsop called him the Beethoven of our times. That is quite a designation to lay on someone.

A new album from Nonesuch gives us two Adams works, both from 2003: The Dharma at Big Sur and My Father Knew Charles Ives. The former combines many of Adams's interests, or passions, including California, Buddhism, and Jack Kerouac. (Kerouac, recall, wrote The Dharma Bums and Big Sur, among other books.) Indeed, Adams has referred to this piece as a "concerto after Kerouac." It is scored for electric violin and orchestra, and has two movements: "A New Day" and "Sri Moonshine."

As you have divined--if you didn't know it already--Adams is a New Age man. And The Dharma at Big Sur, of course, is a New Age piece. It invites you to "lie back and see the colors," as they said in the '70s. But it is not merely psychedelic. It turns jazzy and riffy. And although the piece can strike you as so much noodling, instead of disciplined composing, it builds excitingly, no question. Adams knows what he is doing.

Frankly, this is the kind of music you have to give in to. You simply embrace it--surrender to it, groove to it--or you don't. And if you don't: You will want to turn to some other CD.

Adams's father did not know Charles Ives, actually--but it's a catchy title anyway. Adams's father was, like Ives, a New Englander, a businessman, and a musician: He played the clarinet and saxophone in a variety of bands and orchestras. Adams has called My Father Knew Charles Ives "musical autobiography" and "an homage and encomium to a composer whose influence on me has been huge."

Incidentally, the composer has a very New England, as well as a very presidential, name: John Coolidge Adams.

My Father Knew Charles Ives is a three-movement work for orchestra. Those movements are "Concord," "The Lake," and "The Mountain." We are meant to think of Ives's Three Places in New England, and we might also think of William Schuman's New England Triptych. For some reason, New England things come in threes.

"Concord," particularly, has Ives written all over it, with sounds of the campgrounds, and tunes laid on top of one another. It is powerfully American. "The Lake" is mysterious, even mystical, and "The Mountain" is mystical too, although grander and more energetic. These are tone paintings of a high order.

So, Adams has both coasts covered, and he has the full attention of the classical-music world. Who says that the contemporary composer is always and ignominiously ignored?

* Danny Elfman has made a killing in films, and also in television. He wrote the scores to Batman, Spider-Man, and lots of other flicks. He has often worked with the director Tim Burton, king of weird. Elfman, too, is a king of weird, musical realm. In television, he is best known for the theme to The Simpsons, a little composition fixed in the brains of countless Americans.

His first piece of concert music is Serenada Schizophrana, available from Sony Classical. It was commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra and premiered last year. As Elfman says, he had "always had visuals to drive my orchestral music," but not this time. And, indeed, SS often sounds like a score in search of visuals. In the end, it was used in the IMAX movie Deep Sea 3D.

The music is true to its title--capricious and odd--and comes in seven movements. These, too, have cute, whimsical titles, such as "Bells and Whistles." The music is playful, quirky, cracked--Tim Burton-esque, maybe. It tends to be nervous, manic, drugged up. And Elfman has a definite musical signature, here and in other scores: spooky music that runs; music that says, "Let's get going," or, "We're in some danger"; music that goes churna-churna-churna.

In this "serenade," Elfman repeats himself, having learned from the minimalists, whom he admires, and having learned perhaps too much. But his musical sense usually rescues him. At one point, he busts out into song--a mad, swirling song, in Spanish. This is loco, but well-nigh irresistible.

Elfman is clearly a talent, and if he is mainly a composer for movies and TV, so what? One of my favorite comments of all time comes from Leonard Bernstein, who said that he would have given five years of his life to have written Sousa's great march, The Stars and Stripes Forever. How much time would you give to have written the theme to The Simpsons? At least a long weekend, I imagine.