IT WAS IN 1991 THAT WE PERFORMED THE LIVERPOOL ORATORIO at Liverpool Cathedral, one of the largest in Europe. It was a bittersweet occasion because it was also at Liverpool Cathedral that, as a child, I had failed an audition as a chorister.

It’s strange that I still felt that sting, since it had been nearly forty years, but everyone I’m sure can recall that disappointment from a setback in childhood that never quite disappears. The idea then was that if you became a chorister, you got free books as a prize, and my parents were keen for me to have free books. But I failed the audition. The guy may have liked some other boys more than me. Who knows what he was looking for? But the sad reality was that I didn’t live up to his expectations.

Even though I didn’t pass muster as a chorister, I’ve always liked the architecture of big cathedrals, churches, sacred spaces of any kind, so I go into them wherever I can. Liverpool Cathedral was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, who also did the iconic red telephone box. He designed Battersea and Bankside power stations; the latter is now Tate Modern. There are a couple of churches in New York, like St Patrick’s or St Thomas, that I don’t pass without going in. They have this quiet majesty, which is funny, considering that they’re situated in the middle of a very busy city.

My interest in classical music was never that great, though I did acquire a bit of a collection in the 1960s. I had an uncle, called Jack Ollie, who would come down to stay with us in London. He was a working-class Liverpool guy, but he had a cultural side to him. I had a big vinyl collection, and I would go out to work at the studio or what have you, and he would stay at our house with his wife and go through all the records. He loved Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov which he used to call ‘Sherazio’. ‘I love that Sherazio, Paul.’ ‘Yeah, good.’

When, decades later, I was invited to write something for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic for their 150th anniversary, I thought, ‘Yeah, great!’ as I always do. I worked with Carl Davis on the arrangement. He had written the scores for films like The French Lieutenant’s Woman and Scandal, and right back at the start of his career he did music for the David Frost satirical TV show That Was the Week That Was, which had an incredible set of writers, like John Cleese, Peter Cook, Dennis Potter – all also at the start of their careers. So, I would drive up to Carl’s house in Barnes, near Richmond upon Thames. We’d spend three hours at his piano. I did that for weeks and weeks and weeks while we were writing it.

I loved the drives out to these houses for writing sessions – to Carl Davis for this or, back in the sixties, over to John Lennon, or indeed to George Martin. I found it actually quite heartwarming to go up to Carl’s to work. For a project as long as this, I like the idea of going to what seems to me a neutral space. I’m going to work, so I’m leaving home – ‘See you darling, I’ll be in later.’ I still do that; my recording studio is twenty minutes away from where I live. People say, ‘Why don’t you get a home studio, Paul?’ And I say, ‘Well, I did that once and it was terrible, because you’re never out of the studio. You’ve no life.’ It’s nice to have that separation between ‘the office’ and home.

With Carl Davis. Liverpool, 1991

Sometimes, if I got to Carl’s a bit early, I would go to the local pub. One day I was chatting with this Irish guy at the bar, and I’m having only a little half beer or something like that (you don’t want to get wasted), and the subject came up. He asked, ‘What are you doing? What are you up to?’ And I replied, ‘Well, I’m writing a classical piece for the Liverpool Philharmonic.’ He said, ‘God, don’t you find that daunting?’

And I’ll tell you the truth, it had not occurred to me that it was daunting. I said, ‘No, I don’t think so; I’m having fun with it.’ But that often happens with me. I’ll bite off something and I’ll be halfway through chewing it and enjoying it, when someone will say, ‘Do you know how to do this?’ I think, ‘Oh no, I’d forgotten about that aspect. You have to know how to do things in order to do them?’

Anyway, at Carl’s house I’d just give him an idea or sing a tune to him or pick a key, and we would just make it up as we went along. It was a fabulous exercise for me because as I had my ideas, he wrote them down. Carl is a few years older than me, I think he was in his mid-fifties at this point, and his background was totally different to mine. He’d grown up in New York and gone to university to study composition, so he knew all this musical theory that I hadn’t come across before, and it was a very interesting experience. He would have reams of manuscript paper on the piano, and he’d say, ‘Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me get that. Wait . . .’ He would transcribe it, and to make sure it was correct I’d ask him to play it back. Then I’d say, ‘Great. Okay, moving on.’

The men’s chorus in the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir, I would discover, was this bunch of Liverpool guys, and when there was a break you’d get talking to them and you’d say, ‘What do you do?’ They’d say things like, ‘I’m a plumber. I’ve got a little plumbing business, but I like singing.’ Or ‘I’m a gynaecologist,’ and so on. I love that about choirs, that they’re nearly always composed of people from different walks of life. And then they come together as one because of their love of music. They become one walk of life: the choir. I find that fascinating.

The soloists were extraordinary. Again, I didn’t know what I was doing, so I just said, ‘Can we get so-and-so? Can we get Kiri Te Kanawa to sing the soprano?’ Even though she was then one of the greatest opera stars in the world, we got her, so this was a great cast. The kids were also great, and there was a part for a boy soloist, and we found a boy who could do it really well, so he was flown in from London.

I found it all very exciting, not at all daunting. The only time I thought, ‘This is daunting,’ was while talking about it on radio, when they would throw little curve balls at me. I remember a rather posh BBC Radio 4 programme, and there was a posh lady, a jolly, middle-aged lady, who said, ‘Well, an “oratorio”?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I asked Carl, “Is this like a symphony or a concerto? What is it we’re writing? What do you call it?” And Carl said, “Well, the form is that of an ‘oratorio’.” And I said, “Great! Nice word. We’ll call it the ‘Liverpool Oratorio’.”’

Then she said, ‘Well, why Carl Davis?’ And I said, ‘He’s very good, isn’t he?’ ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘but there are many other conductors who are considered better than him.’ So, suddenly, with one blow, I was daunted.

The critics were more daunting than actually writing it was. And you know, they just had a good sharpen of their pencils and scratched me off their list. But then I got a letter from Neil Kinnock, the leader of the Labour Party at that time, who wrote, ‘Don’t worry Paul, they’ll always say that. They’re bound to say it’s no good, but it’s damn good, and I love it.’