Music box "Memory" Memory musical Cats

Music box "Memory" "Memory" musical " Cats»

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"Memory" is an Aria of Grizabella, the main theme of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats (1981). The words were created later than the melody, written by Trevor Nunn. The song is performed by Grisabella, a once glamorous cat who is nostalgic for her past, first in a truncated version in act I, then in full-closer to the finale. It is the culmination and most famous composition of this musical "Cats".



The history of creation

The lyrics of this and other songs in the musical were based on a collection of poems by Thomas Stearns Eliot, "Popular cat science written by an old possum", which e. L. Webber has been involved since childhood. The author of the words to the song Memory was Trevor Nunn, one of the co-authors and Director of the musical. The Widow T. With. Eliot gave him her husband's notes, which were poems and fragments not included in the original version of the collection. Among these materials was found the fragment "glamorous cat Grisabella" (eng. Grizabella the Glamour Cat), which, along with Rhapsody on a Windy Night, served as the basis for the song. Webber wrote the tune just two weeks before the premiere of the musical, before he saw the lyrics (in the case of the rest of the musical's songs, Webber wrote the music on pre-existing words).

Barbra Streisand recorded the song for her 1981 album Memories. As a single, this version reached #52 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #9 on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks in 1982; in the UK, it reached #34.

The song is performed in such films as "School of rock" (Miranda Cosgrove), "Jersey Girl" (Raquel Castro), " Pranksters». It was also used in the screensaver of the end of the air of the former Moscow channel " M1 " (1999—2002).