Piano ballade

In 19th century romantic music, a piano ballad (most often spelled ballade) is a genre of solo piano pieces written in a balletic narrative style, often with lyrical elements interspersed. This type of work made its first appearance with Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 of 1831–35, closely followed by the ballad included in Clara Schumann's Soirées musicales Op. 6 published in the same year.

Form

Ballades have often been characterized as "narrative" in style, "[musical] parts [that] succeed one another in a determined order... their succession is governed by the relationships of causing and resulting by necessity or probability."

The ballade of this time varied. In Chopin, for example, the common element throughout his ballads was the metre, commonly ⁶
₈ time. Brahms's ballades often relied on a three-part song form.

Ballades sometimes alluded to their literary predecessors. Some had obvious or supposed literary associations. For example, the four ballads of Chopin were supposedly inspired by the poetry of Adam Mickiewicz, a friend. However, no such evidence directly from the composer exists. There was, in fact, no concrete association to literature until Brahms debuted his four ballads (Op. 10), which bear the title "After the Scottish ballad 'Edward' ". However, that claim does not acknowledge the fact that in 1841, 13 years earlier than Brahms, Robert Schumann acknowledged in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (pp. 141–42) that Chopin told him that Chopin was inspired by poems of Mickiewicz.

Piano ballades have been written since the 19th century; several have been composed in the 20th century (see below).

Collaborative piano ballades

The piano has also been used in works featuring other instruments, as well as voice. For example, Robert Schumann, a romantic composer and husband of Clara Schumann, wrote a set of two songs, Balladen, Op. 122 (1852–53) which were written for piano and voice. Claude Debussy, a later composer, also wrote for piano and voice with his Trois ballades de François Villon (Lesure number, 1910).

Works for piano and orchestra also bearing the title "ballade" have been written. These include Fauré's Ballade, Op. 19, which was written in 1881, and Charles Koechlin's Ballade for piano and orchestra, Op. 50, written between 1911–1919. This work also exists as a solo work for piano.

Examples

• Frédéric Chopin
  • Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 (1831–1835)
  • Ballade No. 2 in F major, Op. 38 (1836–1839)
  • Ballade No. 3 in A-flat major, Op. 47 (1840–1841)
  • Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52 (1842)
• Clara Schumann, one of the 6 Soirées musicale, Ballade in D minor (1836)
• César Franck, Ballade, Op. 9 (1844)
• Franz Liszt
  • Ballade in D-flat major, (1845–48)
  • Ballade in B minor (1853)
• Johannes Brahms, Ballades, Op. 10 (1854), consists of four ballades
• Edvard Grieg, Ballade in the Form of Variations on a Norwegian Folk Song, Op. 24 (1875–76)
• Gabriel Fauré, Ballade, Op. 19 (1881)
• Claude Debussy, Ballade (1891, revised 1903)
• Amy Beach, Ballad, Op. 6 (1894)
• George Enescu, Ballade (1894)
• Charles Villiers Stanford Ballade for piano in F major, Op. 148/2 (1917)
• Charles Villiers Stanford Ballade for piano in G minor, Op. 170 (1919)
• Alan Rawsthorne Ballade in G-sharp minor (1929)
• John Ireland, Ballad (aka Ballade) (1929)
• John Ireland, Ballade of London Nights (1930)
• Alan Rawsthorne Ballade (1967)
• Norman Demuth, Ballade triste (1941)
• Alexandre Tansman, Three Ballads for piano (1942)
• Humphrey Searle, Ballade for piano, Op. 10 (1947)
• William Wordsworth (composer), Ballade for piano, Op. 41 (1949)
• Samuel Barber, Ballade for piano, Op. 46 (1977)
• Henri Pousseur, Ballade berlinoise for piano (1977)
• George Perle, Ballade (1981), written for Richard Goode
• David Del Tredici, Ballad in Yellow (1997)
• William Bolcom, Ballade, written for Ursula Oppens, premiered January 21, 2008