The art of playing polka

Sometimes good music takes a while to be appreciated. For the first time, on 11 October 2015, a lively dance tune published in Sydney over 160 years ago was performed at Vaucluse House as part of its centenary celebrations.

In 1854, composer Charles Packer's new piece, ‘The City of Sydney Polka’, was dedicated to the owner of Vaucluse House, William Charles Wentworth. Unfortunately for Packer, Wentworth had just departed for England and by the time he and his family returned to Vaucluse, in 1861, this piece of polka ‘pop’ had faded into obscurity. While Packer’s polka was being played in drawing rooms across the colony throughout 1854, Vaucluse House had remained silent.

Wentworth’s permission for the dedication is emblazoned on the cover of the sheet music and this is surprising given the composer’s social status as a former convict who had been transported to Australia for forgery. It appears, however, that Wentworth’s connection was with the song’s publisher, Woolcott & Clarke, who had been granted the permission rather than the composer.

Packer’s polka had first appeared in a music compendium, ‘The Australian Presentation Album’, in early 1854. Alongside this publication, which was recommended to bachelors as an ‘excellent present to their lady friends’, 1 Woolcott and Clarke advertised subscriptions to a bronze medallion of Wentworth to be made by the sculptor Thomas Woolner. An endorsement by Wentworth appeared in all the advertisements and the polka's dedication to Wentworth appears to be in a similar marketing vein.

Charles Packer had gained a good reputation as a pianist and vocalist while serving his sentence in Hobart Town and, following his release, headed off to Sydney in 1853 to pursue his career. With his compositions favourably reviewed by the critics, Packer flourished until his fall from grace when convicted of bigamy, in 1863, and his sentencing to five years’ hard labour.

‘The City of Sydney Polka’ appeared almost a decade after the polka craze had first struck Australia, in 1845, when newspapers were obsessed with the dance and its potential threat to social order. Some believed that the dance steps, with their energetic Cossack moves, were not appropriate for young women. In 1846, the Sydney Morning Herald published these concerns in an article entitled ‘Modern Dancing’:

The gallop and the polka step, in which gentlemen, with legs wide astride, push their fair partners along, is absolutely disgusting; and I will hold no lady-mother guiltless who after this public warning shall allow her daughter to join such a brutal display.’2

Music and dance were highly favoured by the young women of the colony, and the daughters of WC Wentworth were no exception. They sang, played the piano and guitar, and enjoyed their music lessons. These attributes were considered important in the business of courtship and the magnificent drawing room at Vaucluse House was built to attract potential suitors to entertainments in the Wentworth home. The Wentworth girls may not have had the chance to perform the piece dedicated to their father at Vaucluse, but there is little doubt that they had the opportunity to enjoy many polkas at the balls they attended while living in England.

There is one question that remains unanswered about Wentworth’s personal polka – ‘is the piece really any good?’ Given that ‘beauty is in the ear of the listener’, as they say, we’ll have to leave that judgment up to you.

Listen now

MHNSW presents James Doig playing a Collard & Collard grand piano (c.1863) at Vaucluse House, recorded 15 October 2015.

Listen to ‘City of Sydney polka’

Notes

  1. ‘The Australian Presentation Album’, Sydney Morning Herald, 15 April 1854, p.3.
  2. ‘Modern Dancing’, Sydney Morning Herald, 16 March 1846, p.3.
Published on 
Dr Matthew Stephens

Dr Matthew Stephens

Research Librarian

Matthew Stephens is research librarian at the Caroline Simpson Library & Collection. He is particularly fascinated by early book, musical instrument and sheet music collections in NSW and the stories they tell. Addicted to the historical research process, Matthew has reframed the biography of the eighteenth-century British cross-dressing soldier, Hannah Snell, rediscovered the lost library of explorer Ludwig Leichhardt, and completed a PhD on the early history of the Australian Museum Library and the origins and use of scientific literature in nineteenth-century New South Wales. More recently, Matthew has led the interpretation of the history of domestic music in MHNSW house museums. Since 2015 he has been MHNSW’s representative in the Sound Heritage network (UK) and is co-author and co-editor of Sound Heritage: Making Music Matter in Historic Houses (Routledge, 2022). In 2019, Matthew curated the Songs of Home exhibition at the Museum of Sydney, which examined the musical landscape of NSW during the first 70 years of European settlement. He has collaborated with the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney, on numerous projects including as Partner Investigator on the Australian Research Council Discovery Project ‘Hearing the Music of Early NSW, 1788-1860’ (2021-23). Two research projects led by Matthew on the reinstatement of part of the dispersed Macleay family library at Elizabeth Bay House and the Dowling Songbook Project have received National Trust Heritage Awards.

Browse all
Owner bound volume of assorted songs, in the collection of Rouse Hill House & Farm, 1850-1864. [music]

‘Home! Sweet Home!’

It may come as a surprise that the expression ‘home, sweet home’ originates from a song title

COL_R84_0862v.jpg

'Australian Flowers'

Given that much of the music played in Australia in the 19th century had been imported, one might ask what constituted an ‘Australian’ piece of music?  

Projector and slides.

1960s psychedelia at Rouse Hill House

In a short experimental period of music making, the talented young John Terry combined radical musical ideas with abstract imagery and the soundscape of Rouse Hill House

Portrait of a man with a white beard
On This Day

30 Nov 1878 - 'Advance Australia Fair' first performed

On 30 November 1878 Advance Australia Fair was performed for the first time.