When I Am All Your Own

Lyricist. Louis Weslyn

Publisher. M. Witmark & Sons

Date. 1911

Key/Range. B♭ Major (c♯' -- a♭” [b♭” ossia])

COMMENTARY

When William Brady came to London and procured the rights to produce The Balkan Princess for the Shuberts, he also brought Frank Tours with him to be the music director for the Broadway production. When he arrived in New York, he was made to wait for six months by the musicians’ union until he could work as a conductor in the theatre, and so the producers put him to work as a composer, despite the fact that the purpose of the interpolations was to Americanize the shows. This song, therefore, not only marks the beginning of Tours’ American career, it reveals clear signs of his effort to assimilate to the current stylistic trends circa 1911 on Broadway by composers such as Karl Hoschna and Jerome Kern.