A ballade is a single musical piece played on an instrument that has expressive and dramatic qualities, similar to a song. The word comes from French "ballade" and Latin "ballare," meaning "to dance." In the 19th century, a piano ballade was a type of solo piano piece that told a story with expressive and skillful elements, often inspired by ballet.

Origin

The musical ballade began in the poetry of the medieval and early Renaissance periods. In poetry, the ballade had a specific structure, usually with three main stanzas and a repeated line. This format helped poets tell stories about love, bravery, and legends. Guillaume de Machaut was an important poet who helped make this style popular. The ballade was also a type of courtly dance, known for its elegance and connection to the nobility, which linked it to themes of grandeur and honor.

As the literary ballade developed, its storytelling and musical qualities inspired composers to create instrumental music based on these ideas. During the Romantic period, composers such as Chopin began using the ballade’s storytelling elements to write expressive piano pieces. These musical ballades did not follow a strict poetic structure but instead used melody and musical themes to tell stories and convey deep emotions.

Form

The instrumental ballade of the 19th century became a unique musical form that differed from earlier styles like the sonata and rondo. Instead of repeating sections in a fixed order, the ballade used a more flexible structure with different parts that did not follow strict patterns. Composers like Chopin often based their ballades on a main theme, which was repeated and changed throughout the piece. This flexible structure helped the ballade tell a story through music.

A key feature of the ballade is its use of changes in harmony and tone to create drama and emotion. Composers used sudden shifts in musical keys and uncertain harmonic progressions to build tension and contrast. For example, Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G minor includes key changes that add drama and keep the music moving forward.

Rhythm and melody also helped shape the ballade’s storytelling. Repeating rhythm patterns and melodic phrases were often played with different intensity, speed, or mood, creating a sense of movement and emotional change. This use of repeated musical ideas is similar to techniques used in writing stories.

Ballades varied in style. Chopin’s ballades often used a specific rhythm pattern, commonly 8/8 time. Brahms’s ballades frequently followed a three-part structure similar to songs.

Some ballades were connected to literature. For example, Chopin’s four ballades were said to be inspired by poems from Adam Mickiewicz’s collection Ballady i romanse. However, no direct evidence from Chopin supports this claim. Later, Brahms’s four ballades (Op. 10), titled After the Scottish ballad "Edward," were linked to literature. However, this connection was not accurate, as Robert Schumann had already mentioned in 1841 that Chopin had told him he was inspired by Mickiewicz’s poems.

Romantic ballades

In the late 1700s, German writers used the word ballade to describe a type of poetry that tells stories in a simple, traditional style. This idea was influenced by the writer Johann Gottfried Herder. Some of these poems were later turned into songs by composers like Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Carl Friedrich Zelter, and Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg.

In the 1800s, the term ballade was first used by the composer Frédéric Chopin to name four large piano pieces, called Ballades Nos. 1 to 4, with the numbers Op. 23, 38, 47, 52. This was the first time the word was used for music that is not sung. Later, other composers also wrote piano pieces called ballades, including Johannes Brahms (Klavierstücke, Op. 118 and Ballades, Op. 10), Edvard Grieg (Ballade in the Form of Variations, Op. 24), Claude Debussy, Friedrich Baumfelder (Two Ballades, Op. 47 and No. 2, Op. 285), Franz Liszt (two pieces), and Gabriel Fauré (Op. 19).

Ballades have also been written for instruments other than the piano. Examples from the 1900s include three ballades by Manolis Kalomiris, six ballades by Frank Martin (for instruments like the cello, viola, flute, and saxophone), and Ballade for Harp and Strings by Einojuhani Rautavaara. Henry Cowell composed a ballade for string orchestra.

Other composers have written ballades for orchestras, including Grace Williams, Gottfried von Einem, Alexander Glazunov, and Kurt Atterberg. These pieces are also written for solo instruments and orchestras, such as piano (Ture Rangström, Germaine Tailleferre, Darius Milhaud, Ludomir Różycki, Norman Dello Joio), cello (Heino Eller, Reinhold Glière, Frederic d'Erlanger), violin (Julius Röntgen), two pianos (Benjamin Britten), horn (Hermann Haller), and oboe (Hendrik Andriessen). Additional ballades have been written for combinations of instruments and voices by composers like György Ligeti, Eric Ewazen, Spike Milligan, Larry Stephens, Sergei Prokofiev, Ottorino Respighi, and Kurt Weill.

Collaborative piano ballades

The ballade has also been used in musical works that include more than one instrument. For example, Robert Schumann, a romantic composer and the husband of Clara Schumann, created a set of two songs called Balladen, Op. 122 (1852–53), which were written for piano and voice. Later, Claude Debussy composed for piano and voice with his work Trois ballades de François Villon (L. 119, 1910).

Musical pieces for piano and orchestra titled "ballade" have also been published. These include Ballade, Op. 19, by Fauré, written in 1881 along with a version for solo piano. Another example is Ballade for piano and orchestra, Op. 50, by Charles Koechlin, composed between 1911 and 1919. Germaine Tailleferre also wrote a Ballade in 1920.

Examples of piano ballades

• Frédéric Chopin composed Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 between 1831 and 1835. Ballade No. 2 in F major, Op. 38 was written between 1836 and 1839. Ballade No. 3 in A-flat major, Op. 47 was composed between 1840 and 1841. Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52 was created between 1842.
• Clara Schumann composed a Ballade in D minor as part of the 6 Soirées musicales in 1836.
• César Franck composed a Ballade, Op. 9 in 1844.
• Franz Liszt composed Ballade No. 1 in D-flat Major, S. 170 between 1845 and 1848. Ballade No. 2 in B minor, S. 171 was written in 1853.
• Johannes Brahms composed Ballades, Op. 10 in 1854. This set includes four ballades.
• Edvard Grieg composed a Ballade in the Form of Variations on a Norwegian Folk Song, Op. 24 between 1875 and 1876.
• Gabriel Fauré composed a Ballade, Op. 19 in 1881.
• Claude Debussy composed a Ballade in 1891, which was revised in 1903.
• Amy Beach composed a Ballad, Op. 6 in 1894.
• George Enescu composed a Ballade in 1894.
• Manuel Ponce composed Balada Mexicana in 1915.
• Charles Villiers Stanford composed a Ballade for piano in F major, from the Op. 148 set Night Thoughts in 1917. A Ballade for piano in G minor, Op. 170 was written in 1919.
• Alan Rawsthorne composed a Ballade in G-sharp minor in 1929. Another Ballade was composed in 1967.
• John Ireland composed a Ballad in 1929. A Ballade of London Nights was written in 1930.
• Norman Demuth composed Ballade triste in 1941.
• Alexandre Tansman composed Three Ballades for piano in 1941.
• Humphrey Searle composed a Ballade for piano, Op. 10 in 1947.
• William Wordsworth composed a Ballade for piano, Op. 41 in 1949.
• Samuel Barber composed a Ballade for piano, Op. 46 in 1977.
• Henri Pousseur composed a Ballade berlinoise for piano in 1977.
• George Perle composed a Ballade in 1981. This piece was written for Richard Goode.
• William Bolcom composed a Ballade, written for Ursula Oppens. It premiered on January 21, 2008.