Musical recalled one of its contributors with old way of playing (8)
I believe the answer is:
staccato
'its contributors with old way of playing' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.
'musical recalled one' is the wordplay.
'musical' becomes 'Cats' (Andrew Lloyd Webber musical).
'recalled' says the letters should be written backwards (to recall can mean to bring something back).
'one' becomes 'cato' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'cats' back-to-front is 'stac'.
'stac'+'cato'='STACCATO'
'of' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for staccato that I've seen before include "not running smoothly" , "Cat's coat (anag) - clipped" , "Disjointed, not smooth and flowing" , "In music, in a sharp disconnected manner" , "not to be played legato" .)