I just found a German website stating that ONLY LOVE was recycled from The Scarlet Pimpernel. As far as I know ONLY LOVE was originally intended for Rudolf, so it's absolutely not adequate to refer to it as recycling.
Do you agree, or is the German website right? What's your opinion?

While the song was indeed written for RUDOLF, many people don't know that and do think the song was simply transfered from one show to the other.
I wouldn't be upset, it's not the first time I've seen people thinking that, so that site is just one more ;) Since neither the CDs nor the Programm nor anything speak specificly about the history of the song, it's more than normal that they think it was recicled.

Well, the first release of "Only Love" was on Linda's album "It's time" in 1997, and liner notes stated that it was from "The Scarlet Pimpernel", although it was not included on Linda's first concept recording of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" released in 1992.

True, but Rudolf was was born in Frank's brain by the same time Jekyll & Hyde, when Frank read the novel Ein Letzte Walter (I can't recall teh english title).
So technically Rudolf pre-dates The Scarlet Pimpernel. However the show only went into full production once Katherin Zechner from the VBW decided to "order" the show from Frank.
But because there were no plans for ever producing Rudolf at the time and because Frank and Nan liked the song so much that they puted it in The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Once Rudolf was comissioned, the song was removed from the official SP script and transfered for its right place, in Rudolf.

The problem to me lies in the fact that there are still licenced productions of The Scarlet Pimpernel that include Only Love in the score (such as the 2007 Norwegian production) and that may lead to many mistakes and confusions ;)

That sounds reasonable, but there's another explanation for removing "Only love" from "The Scarlet Pimpernel" which can be found at http://nanknighton.com/questions/archive/2001-Dec.shtml

That also possible. I can't really say which one is the more correct. Nan explains the removal in the script context, the Rudolf story is the explanation Frank himself gives for the removal of the song...so I think we'll have to stay in doubt which is the real explanation :P

I think "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and "Rudolf" both started around the same time.

To try and help clear things up here...

"Only Love" wasn't removed from Pimpernel "because Rudolf was commissioned", or specifically to move it back into that show. It was originally written for Rudolf, but put into Pimpernel - as Fantasma says - because production plans came together for Pimpernel a lot earlier than they did for Rudolf. It was only performed in SP1... and was removed (for the reasons Nan gives on her website) during the transition from SP1 to SP2. That could have been the end of the story for the song... but when Rudolf did finally start to come together for the stage, they put it back in that show.

Frank and Nan did start work on both shows pretty early on. I think I saw a mention somewhere that Rudolf was the first one they actually worked on together, but I'm not sure where that was (another of Nan's Q&A's maybe?). In any case... the song has an interesting history which can certainly cause confusion.

Best,
Peter

Thanks for things clearing up. To be honest, with this in mind I wouldn't name "Only Love" in Rudolf RECYCLING.