Polka de W.R.
piano arrangement of Franz Behr's Lachtäubchen (Scherzpolka) by Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Rachmaninoff's Polka de W.R. is a virtuoso piano arrangement of Franz Behr's Lachtäubchen (Scherzpolka) in F major.
Composition
Rachmaninoff wrote the arrangement on 24 March 1911, the day after the premiere of the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom in Saint Petersburg. He dedicated it to Leopold Godowsky. It was published the same year, as part of an album of Russian pieces called Nouvelle Collection de Musique; the other composers represented in the album were Alexander Scriabin, Nikolai Medtner, Sergei Taneyev, Georgy Catoire and Alexander Goedicke.
Analysis
Polka de W.R. is in A♭ major and in 24 time. The piece starts with semi-quavers in the right-hand and a melody in the left. After four bars, this then progresses to a melody with a quaver followed by triplet semi-quavers underneath. Meanwhile, the left-hand plays a typical polka oom-cha rhythm with firstly a bass note and then a chord above. After 12 bars of this, there is then a melody in the right-hand and chords in the left. This continues for 16 bars.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Polka de W.R.” as piano arrangement of Franz Behr's Lachtäubchen (Scherzpolka) by Sergei Rachmaninoff. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as piano arrangement of Franz Behr's Lachtäubchen (Scherzpolka) by Sergei Rachmaninoff. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1749643. The Library of Congress control number is n83013700. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1911.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Polka de W.R.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.