Jenny Lind Polka: A Song History

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The "Jenny Lind Polka" honors Jenny Lind (1820–1887), the Swedish soprano known as the "Swedish Nightingale."[1] The tune is generally traced to the composer Anton Wallerstein (1813–1892), whose piano piece "Jenny Lind's Lieblings-Polka" (her "favorite polka") appeared in the mid-1840s. Sources differ on the exact year: the Traditional Tune Archive gives 1846, while IMSLP says it was first published on its own in 1845 and later added to Wallerstein's Op. 28.[2][3] In America the name of dancing master and bandsman Allen Dodworth is sometimes linked to the melody, though the archive treats him as its arranger rather than its composer.[2]

1850 lithograph portrait of the singer Jenny Lind in an oval frame

F. D’Avignon after a daguerreotype by Mathew B. Brady, Jenny Lind, lithograph, 1850. Library of Congress. No known restrictions.

Lind became a sensation in America during her 1850–1852 tour under P. T. Barnum. More than 30,000 people met her ship in New York, she gave 150 concerts, and shops sold Lind-branded goods from gloves and bonnets to pianos and paper dolls.[4][5] The polka named for her spread widely. It is known in England and Australia as well as across the United States, and it goes by many other names, among them "Heel and Toe Polka."[2] Southern fiddlers adopted it. It belonged to many North Carolina Piedmont musicians, appears in a list of Ozark fiddle tunes published by Vance Randolph in 1954, and was recorded on a 78 by Henry Whitter's Breakdowners of southwestern Virginia.[2]

Bill Monroe recorded it as "Heel and Toe Polka" on his 1972 Decca album Uncle Pen.[6][2] Bluegrass players should not confuse it with Monroe's own "Jenny Lynn," an A-major number he composed, which the Traditional Tune Archive says is unrelated to the Lind tunes.[7] "Jenny Lind Polka" appears in Stephen Seifert's mountain dulcimer collection Join the Jam II.[8]

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Sources

  1. Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Jenny Lind".
  2. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Jenny Lind (1)".
  3. IMSLP Petrucci Music Library: "4 Compositionen, Op.28 (Wallerstein, Anton)".
  4. Smithsonian National Museum of American History: "Meet Jenny Lind, one of America's first female celebrities".
  5. U.S. National Park Service: "Jenny Lind".
  6. Bluegrass Discography (ibiblio): "Bill Monroe's Uncle Pen".
  7. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Jenny Lynn".
  8. Stephen Seifert: "Join the Jam II".