Cavatina by Stanley Myers

I remember watching the Tony Hart Show as a kid. Besides memories of Tony and Morph, I also cherish one of the musical themes used as background music to the galery: "Cavatina", played by John Williams on the guitar. It has stuck with me all these years. Over the years I've often tried to play it from memory, but said memory fails me in the second part...

Much to my delight, I read on Wikipedia that the piece was actually composed for the piano originally, and Myers only transcribed and expanded for the guitar later, at Williams' request. This guitar version was also used as the theme to the movie "The Deer Hunter".

While I've found some transcriptions for the guitar, I've not managed to find any piano sheet music for it - least of all for the original piano version. Can anyone point me in a good direction?

Just checked and Musicnotes.com has it. It'll be five bucks or something. Great site by the way.

I think that piece is one of the best ever written and you'd never forget the sound of it after hearing it in the movie' The Deer Hunter'.

rada

Yeah, but BABY is it tough to play on guitar. Been chasing this one on my nylon string for a couple months now.

Much obliged, I'll check out Musicnotes.com .

I love that piece, so I was happy to see this thread. I just purchased the Stanley Myers/John Williams arrangement. [scampers off to go try it]

Piano is easier to play than the guitar.

rada

Guitar especially in the classical genre is pretty difficult to maintain tone control. Not to mention one really need to develop the left hand and wrist power and in the process, thick calluses appears on the finger tip. My 10+ years of studying/playing classical guitar during my younger years lead me to believe it is not an optimized instrument for solo playing. I often had trouble and struggling with getting the tone that I wanted. Compared to piano, classical guitar requires a lot more patience and persistent and the ability to endure pain /fatigue in the left hand fingers (at least until the calluses develop).

Incidentally, Myers' "Cavatina" was the music that inspired me to take up guitar. I just could not get it out of my head after I watched "The Deer Hunter". I was in middle school. I was able to play this piece okay after months of practice (but years after I first heard it). One of my all time favorite.

Thanks for all the responses.

Re. guitar playing: this is one instrument I never mastered, albeit not for lack of trying. Trying to press all 6 strings correctly to obtain a clean tone was just too frustrating...

Back to Cavatina - perhaps you can give me some pointers:

I've always wondered about the time signature. The accompaniment has a definite duple lilt to it (6/8 or 2/4 with triplets), but the melody has several triple time (3/4) passages, e.g. the third-last bar of the first section, and also the "cadenza"-like solo before the piece moves into the more distant keys.

Still, I sense that the piece is in a calm, lilting duple time. Do you agree?

Yes, that's the way I feel it......when I hear a song I will look at the time signature but after that it's all about the feeling of the song....and of course rubato...I love rubato....even if it is ever so slight.

rada