Sirenen Lieder, Polka mazur, Op. 13 (arr. W. Dörner)

Program notes

About the Work

Sirenen Lieder (‘Songs of the Sirens’) is a polka-mazurka by Josephine Weinlich, the pioneering nineteenth-century conductor and composer who founded Europe’s first women’s orchestra. Its inclusion at the 2026 New Year’s Concert, in an arrangement by Wolfgang Dörner and heard there for the first time, marks a significant act of rediscovery, restoring to the concert hall a voice long lost to history. The polka-mazurka is a graceful hybrid dance: it weds the gentle lilt of the Polish mazurka, in a moderate triple time, to the Viennese polka tradition, producing music more lyrical and swaying than the brisk polka schnell. The evocative title gestures toward the alluring song of the mythological sirens, and the piece unfolds with an unhurried, singing charm well suited to its subject. That a work by Weinlich should now sound in the Musikverein is a quiet but meaningful expansion of the New Year’s tradition.

What to Listen For

Unlike the fast polkas elsewhere on the programme, this is a polka-mazurka: moderate in tempo and triple in metre, with a gentle, rocking lilt. Listen for the characteristic mazurka emphasis that falls on the second or third beat, lending the dance its slightly wistful sway, and for the singing, song-like melodies that justify the ‘siren’ of the title. Dörner’s arrangement clothes Weinlich’s tunes in idiomatic Viennese orchestral colour.