Ballades (complete)

The best represented genre on tonight's program is the Ballade, of which Chopin wrote four. According to Robert Schumann, Chopin took inspiration from the Lithuanian Ballads written by fellow Pole Adam Mickiewicz. Even without that clue, it is fairly easy to extract poetic scenarios from the pieces, which utilize varying degrees of thematic development and return, conflict and resolution, and virtuosic musical gestures that take on embodied significance.
Consider Ballade No. 1 in G Minor (1835) and its cryptic closing passage. These fevered scale runs are not structurally necessary for closure, yet they succeed on the basis of the end-oriented narrative arc. Between that ending and a forceful summons motive at the beginning, the Ballade's modified sonata form ranges from grace to effusive joy. The lyric second theme in E-flat major is one of the composer's most tender melodies; Rachmaninoff surely learned his art from such purity of expression. The theme's apotheosis just moments later in the unrelated key of A major (!) is both emotionally cathartic and harmonically innovative.
Ballade No. 2 (1839) revels in its opening chordal tranquility—unhurried, unencumbered by Chopin's typical chromaticism and brilliant figuration. Such deep serenity operates like a siren-song on the menacing second theme, which rolls across the keyboard like a marauding horde. One need hardly mention Mickiewicz's scenario (the transformation of maidens into water lilies in order to escape invaders) given how thoroughly Chopin develops this conflict between innocence and barbarity. The brilliant coda will wreck all but the most gifted pianists. Yet despite its vehemence, the coda cannot carry the day. In a hushed recollection of the opening theme, Chopin gives beauty the last word. Or is salvation just a dream? What started in radiant F major now ends in a desolate A minor.
Chopin purportedly based his Ballade No. 3 in A-flat Major (1841) on the medieval legend of Ondine, a sorceress/nymph who falls in love with a man, tempts his fidelity, and ultimately drags him to a watery grave. Chopin's love of dance emerges in the gracious opening salute and never totally disappears. It is surely no coincidence that, apart from the seven-measure introduction to Ballade No. 1, every measure of these four works is composed in a dance-like compound triple meter: 6/4 or 6/8. Rather than presenting themes in opposition, Ballade No. 3 develops in ever widening circles of thematic variation. Chopin brings a robust theme to life slowly, only to pull it below waves of running notes in later passages. The work's free form and increased number of themes, as well as their recurrence in different guises, amplifies the music's story-telling ability.
Ballade No. 4 in F Minor (1842), largest and most technically demanding of the four, opens tamely enough. We feel, in fact, that we have arrived late and hear only the tail-end of some gracious theme. Chopin soon ushers in a more sinuous melody, developing it at length with vibrant key changes, added inner voices, and a gradually thickening texture. He pulls ideas from other genres (nocturne, etude) and eras (Bachian counterpoint) before landing in the world of the first theme of Ballade No. 2. Eventually we come back to the opening motive, which magically sounds fuller, more complete in its current setting. After reprising his main themes, Chopin launches a demonic tour-de-force coda. But at the eleventh hour, a reprieve: an inspired, reverential chorale before the furies return, winging us headlong to a violent conclusion. This magisterial Ballade summarizes so much of Chopin's interests in piano technique, harmonic/melodic construction, and form. A fitting to conclusion to any program, it gives a lasting impression of a composer at the peak of his craft.

(c) Jason Stell