“Waltzing in the Clouds”

Robert Stolz was the last major survivor from the heyday of Viennese operetta. Although he died less than thirty years ago, and although he was so much of our time as to win two Oscars for his work as a composer in Hollywood, he knew both Brahms and Johann Strauss and had been drafted into the service of operetta before the First World War. And he went on writing for the stage until he was well into his eighties, completing no fewer than sixty-five operettas or musicals as well as hundreds of songs and dozens of film scores.

Rather more sensitive than his colleague Franz Lehár to the political situation in Austria at the beginning of the Second World War, he left Vienna for America in 1940 and stayed there for six years, composing for the film studios and conducting Viennese concerts. One of his earliest Hollywood successes was the music he wrote for Spring Parade.

Set in old Vienna and starring Deanna Durbin and Robert Cummings, the film features a pretty young assistant at a bakery who encourages a handsome and musically gifted army Corporal to write waltzes. The Corporal’s major inspiration is “Waltzing High in the Clouds,” which is sung first by Cummings, taken up by Durbin and danced by the two of them together. Although the song was nominated for an Oscar in 1940, it was beaten into first place by “When you wish upon a star” from Pinocchio. Even so, its widespread and lasting popularity (it was taken up by Nana Mouskouri in the 1980s) is an indication of the undying appeal of the Viennese waltz and the authentic quality of Stolz’s tune.