Polka

What it means

The polka is a Bohemian couple dance in duple time that arose around 1830 and spread rapidly across the whole of Europe. It became one of the most popular social dances of the nineteenth century.

Characteristic is a lively, hopping step distributed over the two beats, with a small hop at the end. Musically this corresponds to a duple metre with a clear accent on the first beat, an accompaniment marking the alternation of bass and chord, and a melody with frequently dotted or syncopated figures.

The polka is to be distinguished from the galop, which is faster and more turbulent, and from the furiant, another Bohemian dance characterized by its metric shifts. There were also variants such as the fast polka and the polka-mazurka, a mixed form in triple time.

In the notation

The polka stands in duple time with an accompaniment of bass on the first and chord on the second beat. The form is organized into sections of eight or sixteen bars, often with a contrasting trio.

Musical use

In the nineteenth century the polka belonged to the fixed repertoire of ballroom music. Dance composers wrote numerous polkas, and it also appears in operettas and in art music. In the folk and wind-band music of Central Europe it remains alive to this day.

Johann Strauss II wrote numerous polkas; he composed the Pizzicato Polka in 1869 together with his brother Josef for a summer engagement at Pavlovsk near St Petersburg, for pizzicato strings with glockenspiel. Smetana included the polka in his opera The Bartered Bride. In English and French it is likewise called polka. By way of Prague, where it was danced in the ballrooms by 1835, it reached Vienna in 1839 and Paris in 1840, where people spoke of “polkamania”; in 1844 it arrived in London.

Performance practice

Keep the tempo lively and the pulse firm. Accent the first beat and keep the second light. Play the accompaniment taut and springy. And watch the character — a polka is cheerful and hopping, not heavy or stamping.