The Dancing Years: Waltz of my Heart

Ivor Novello (1893-1951)

The Dancing Years: Waltz of my Heart

It’s a rare event when a British composer turns up in a New Year concert. But Ivor Novello, the most successful composer of British musicals before Andrew Lloyd Webber, was no stranger to Viennese music. The fact that he saw The Merry Widow no fewer than 27 times is an indication of how deeply he immersed himself in Viennese operetta, just as his The Dancing Years – which was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1939 – shows how effectively he adapted its idiom to his own melodic style. As librettist, composer and principal singer, he wrote for himself the leading role of Rudi Kleiber, an at first penniless but ultimately prosperous Viennese composer of operetta. His big number in Act 1, “Waltz of my Heart”, marks the beginning of Rudi’s tortuous love affair with an operetta star, Maria Ziegler.