Paul McCartney has made his share of classic music: Now the ex-Beatle is releasing a classical album.

Ecce Cor Meum, which means Behold My Heart, is a choral and orchestral work in both English and Latin, due out this autumn.

Britain抯 Magdalen College Oxford commissioned McCartney to create the music more than eight years ago in celebration of a new concert hall.

Though McCartney has released three other classically-oriented albums, he acknowledged that writing Ecce Cor Meum was a difficult task that took revisions and public performances before he finally got it right.

"Eventually I made it all come together through correcting some misapprehensions," McCartney, 64, said.

"If it had been a Beatles song I would have known how to do it. But this was a completely different ballgame." Ecce Cor Meum is to be released on September 26.