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Britta Polka

Hans Christian Lumbye (1810–1874) · sheet music

  • Time 2/4
  • Levels 6–10
  • Passages 23

Your turn · both hands

 

 

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Hans Christian Lumbye, Danish romantic (1810–1874). The reading release has 23 passages from this piece at levels 6–10; the reader above opens on the easiest, bars 21–22 for the left hand alone.

Practice the hard bars →

The hardest stretch is bars 1–4 at level 10.

Your practice path

Learn it the way teachers do: each hand on its own, then together, then the hard bars. Each step is a real graded passage of Britta Polka.

  1. Right hand alone · bars 13–24 level 10
  2. Left hand alone · bars 21–22 level 6
  3. Hands together · bars 69–72 level 7
  4. The hardest bars · bars 1–4 level 10

How to play Britta Polka

  1. Tempo:A polka moves in a quick two, with the quarter note as the beat. Learn it at a slow, steady speed where every sixteenth is clear, and treat performance tempo as a later goal.
  2. Right hand:Many right-hand figures start with a pair of sixteenths that pushes into a longer note. Group each pickup with the note it leads to, so the run sounds like a single gesture.
  3. Left hand:The left hand plays a bass note on the beat and a chord on the off-beat, often several times in a row. Practice the drop from chord to bass with your eyes on the music so your hand learns the distance.
  4. Hands together:Lock the right-hand sixteenths to the left-hand eighths: two sixteenths for every bass note or chord. Tap the rhythm on the closed lid first if it keeps slipping.
  5. Dynamics:Keep the off-beat chords short and lighter than the tune so the melody stays on top. Save full weight for the big chords that open the piece.
  6. Reading:Three sharps, F, C and G sharp, hold for the outer sections, and the trio drops the G sharp. Check the key signature at the start of every passage before you play.
  7. Practice:Work in two-bar cells at first. When a cell is clean three times in a row, join it to the next one and raise the metronome only slightly.

Common mistakes

  • Playing G natural in the A major sections or G sharp in the trio. Fix: Name the sharps aloud at each key change and play the matching scale once before reading on.
  • Letting the off-beat chords grow heavy and cover the melody. Fix: Play the left hand alone with the chords very soft and the bass notes a little louder, then add the tune.
  • Starting too fast and falling apart in the sixteenth runs. Fix: Set a tempo at which the fastest run is even, and raise it in small steps only after clean repetitions.
  • Clipping the rests after the short chords so the next strain arrives early. Fix: Count the rests out loud in eighths until the silence gets its full length.

Structure: polka with trio (A–B–A)

Like most dance-hall polkas, it is built from short, square strains in a quick two. In the piano version on this page, the opening polka strains in A major give way to a trio in D major with one sharp fewer, and the A major music then returns to close the dance.

A · Polka (A major)
A loud chordal opening, then a tune of quick sixteenth figures over a bass-and-chord left hand. This is the busiest reading on the page, with three sharps and many full chords.
B · Trio
The key signature drops to two sharps for a contrasting strain with the same bouncing accompaniment. Watch for the switch back to three sharps at its end.
A · Polka returns (A major)
The A major music comes back, with short sixteenth pickups leading into each melody note and quick runs falling from high in the right hand.

About Britta Polka

Hans Christian Lumbye was born in 1810 and was playing trumpet in a military band by the age of 14. In 1839 he heard a Viennese orchestra play the music of Johann Strauss I and began writing dances in that style, which earned him the nickname the Strauss of the North. From 1843 to 1872 he was music director and house composer at Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen.

The Britta Polka was composed and published in 1864 and first played at Tivoli on 28 May of that year. It is dedicated to a Miss Britta Rydberg. The original is for orchestra, and the Copenhagen publisher Wilhelm Hansen also issued a solo piano version by an uncredited arranger.

One reviewer of an orchestral recording hears both nursery-like bells and a marching hussar band in it. In the piano version that color turns into bright chords in both hands and fast right-hand runs over a bouncing bass.

  • Lumbye joined the Horse Guards in Copenhagen in 1829.
  • Many Danes thought of Johann Strauss II as the Lumbye of the South.
  • Lumbye's Champagne Galop opens with the pop of a cork, and his Copenhagen Steam Railway Galop imitates a train leaving one station and stopping at the next.
  • The Britta Polka had its first performance at Tivoli on 28 May 1864.

Why the first passage is level 6

That passage is level 6 rather than 5 because a hand plays full chords, its chords go beyond simple triads.

Even the easiest passage on this page is demanding, with three sharps and sixteenth notes. Treat it as a stretch piece and break it into very short chunks.

Questions about Britta Polka

How hard is Britta Polka to play?
Its passages grade from level 6 to level 10 on Real Sight Reader's ten-level reading scale, so the full piece is intermediate to advanced reading. The hardest stretch is bars 1–4 at level 10.
Is there an easy part of Britta Polka for beginners?
Its easiest passage is level 6, so it suits a reader past the beginner stage. Start with bars 21–22 for the left hand alone, the level-6 passage in the reader at the top of this page; it is level 6 because a hand plays full chords and its chords go beyond simple triads.
What key and time signature is Britta Polka in?
The engraving on this page is in 2/4 time.
Who composed Britta Polka?
Hans Christian Lumbye, Danish romantic (1810–1874). Hans Christian Lumbye was born in 1810 and was playing trumpet in a military band by the age of 14.
Can I practice Britta Polka online for free?
Yes. The reader on this page plays any of the 23 graded passages from Britta Polka in your browser, with an on-screen keyboard or a MIDI keyboard, and marks every note as you play. No signup.
Who was Britta in the Britta Polka?
The polka is dedicated to Miss Britta Rydberg. Little else about her appears in the published sources on the piece.
When was the Britta Polka first performed?
It was first played at Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen on 28 May 1864, the same year it was composed and published.
Did Lumbye write other polkas?
Yes, many. His Caroline Polka of 1843 and Casino Polka of 1846 are among them, alongside famous galops such as the Champagne Galop.

Every passage, easiest first

The reading release grades 23 distinct passages of this piece. Open any of them in the reader:

Level 6
bars 21–22 left hand
Level 7
bars 69–72 both hands
Level 8
bars 13–16 both hands · bars 13–20 both hands · bars 17–20 both hands · bars 29–32 both hands · bars 41–44 both hands · bars 49–52 both hands · bars 57–60 both hands · bars 65–72 both hands · bars 65–68 both hands · bars 73–76 both hands
Level 9
bars 29–36 both hands · bars 33–36 both hands · bars 33–40 both hands
Level 10
bars 1–4 both hands · bars 13–24 both hands · bars 13–24 right hand · bars 17–24 both hands · bars 21–24 both hands · bars 48–59 both hands · bars 49–56 both hands · bars 53–56 both hands

More pieces to sight-read

Score: public-domain engraving from the corpus (pdmx), graded by the piano-reading-v2-20261023-identity-audit reading release.

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