Lloyd-Webber: “Memory” from “Cats”: Transcribed For Cello

This beautiful song comes from the musical “Cats” (1981). Our cello version is presented in the key of C major, mainly because this key allows us to repeat the opening melody in two different registers, first in the lower tenor octave and then in the higher soprano octave, as though we were two different singers. Andrew Lloyd-Webber (1948-) was a little worried that the aria sounded too much like Puccini. Well, we have made it sound even more like Puccini, stretching out bars 6, 13, 30 and 36 by using an expansive duplet rhythm where the composer chose not to (perhaps to deliberately avoid sounding like Puccini?).

Edited Performance Version    Clean Performance Version    Easier Version    Piano Score

A play-along audio of the piano accompaniment can be found here below. If we actually download it then we can play it at different tempi with the wonderfully useful and simple Amazing Slowdowner program:

By clicking here a Youtube video recording of this cello transcription can be seen.