Ballade No.4 in F minor, Op.52

By the time he came two write the fourth in the series of Ballades, in 1842, Chopin’s mastery in integrating melody and form was complete. One of Chopin’s greatest works, it is a structural masterpiece and, like all the best examples of story-telling, never predictable.

The main theme, introduced after a short prelude, sounds at first like a fragile stray from one of the nocturnes. It proves to be an adaptable melody, however, capable of carrying a weight of passionate expression, before it is relieved by the entry of a happier, less complicated theme in B flat major. The burden of the main climax is borne by this more robust second subject, now in D flat major. But the brilliant coda, beginning after the slow and quiet chords which bring the music temporarily to rest on C major, is yet another transformation of the mercurial main theme.

The one form which Chopin can be said to have invented is the ballade.    It was “inspired,” he told Robert Schumann, “by the poems of Mickiewicz, ” the Polish nationalist poet in exile at the time and a member of the composer’s circle in Paris. Chopin surely did not mean to indicate to Schumann that his ballades were directly based on the stories in Mickiewicz’s Ballady i romanse. It is not entirely impossible but the likelihood is that what he owed to them was a useful title, the general idea of a poetic narrative and, above all perhaps, an epic form which could be sustained by lyrical material.   

By the time he came two write the fourth in the series of Ballades, in 1842, Chopin’s mastery in integrating melody and form was complete. Although the ballade conventions – the 6/8 metre, the narrative style, the bardic prelude – are retained, the F minor work is even more liberated in structure than its predecessor in A flat major and is on a larger scale. The main theme, introduced after the short narrative prelude, sounds like a fragile stray from one of the nocturnes. Giving no hint at first of the epic trials it is about to withstand, it proves in a spontaneously motivated succession of variations to be an adaptable melody, capable of carrying a weight of passionate expression, before it is relieved by the entry of a happier, less complicated theme in B flat major. Although the new theme bears the burden of the main climax, the brilliantly scored coda is yet another transformation of the mercurial main theme.

The one form which Chopin can be said to have invented is the ballade. It was “inspired,” he told Robert Schumann, “by the poems of Mickiewicz, ” the Polish nationalist poet in exile at the time and a member of the composer’s circle in Paris. Chopin surely did not mean to indicate to Schumann that his ballades were directly based on the stories in Mickiewicz’s Ballady i romanse. It is not entirely impossible but the likelihood is that what he owed to them was a useful title, the general idea of a poetic narrative and, above all, a solution to the problem endemic to the romantic composer: where to find the dramatic or epic form which could be sustained by lyrical material.

By the time he came to write the fourth in the series of Ballades, in 1842, Chopin’s mastery in integrating melody and form was complete. Although the ballade conventions – the 6/8 metre, the narrative style, the bardic prelude – are retained, the F minor work is even more liberated in form than its predecessor in A flat major and is on a larger scale. One of Chopin’s greatest works, it is a structural masterpiece and, like all the best examples of story-telling, never predictable.

The main theme, introduced after the short narrative prelude with the characteristic repeated notes, sounds like a fragile stray from one of the nocturnes. Although it at first gives no hint of the epic trials it is about to withstand, it proves in a spontaneously motivated succession of variations to be an adaptable melody, capable of carrying a weight of passionate expression, before it is relieved by the entry of a happier, less complicated theme in B flat major. The burden of the main climax, after a development featuring the bardic narrator as well as the two thematic protagonists, is borne by this more robust second subject, now in D flat major. But the brilliant coda, beginning after the slow and quiet chords which bring the music temporarily to rest on C major, is yet another transformation of the mercurial main theme.

The Fourth Ballade is dedicated to Baronne Charlotte de Rothschild who, as a fervent admirer of Chopin’s music and one of his favourite pupils, was no doubt well able to appreciate a work that many of even the most sophisticated of her contemporaries regarded as incomprehensible.