Two Ballades

No.3 in A flat major Op.47 (1841)

No.4 in F minor Op.52 (1842)

When Chopin told Schumann that his Ballades were “inspired by poems of Mickiewicz” he was surely not saying that they were based on specific stories included in the Polish poet’s Ballady i romanse, much though he admired them. As a composer who derided efforts, including Schumann’s, to interpret his music programmatically, he can have meant no more than that Mickiewicz had furnished him with a useful title - Chopin’s were the first ever instrumental “ballades” - and the general idea of a romantic or heroic narrative in a poetic context. The nearest thing to a tribute to Mickiewicz in these works is the more or less prominent role played by a poet story-teller in each one of them. No.3 in A flat, for example, begins with a long introduction of melodious recitative with virtuoso flourishes and hints of events to come in the narrative. The recitative introduction to No.4 in F minor is much shorter but scarcely less eloquent.

The main section of each of these two works is devoted to the adventures experienced by its principal thematic protagonist. The main theme of Ballade No.3, which enters after a prolonged A flat major chord, is an engaging personality characterised by its lilting off-beat rhythmic accents. The equivalent material in Ballade No.4 is an apparently fragile expression of romantic melancholy. Neither theme seems robust enough to withstand epic pressure. Fortunately, since its only ally is a cheerfully pirouetting dance tune, the central figure of the Ballade in A flat does not have too much weight imposed on it as it goes through its transformations on the way to its climactic final appearance. The main theme of the Ballade in F minor, on the other hand, has to prove that it is capable of carrying a weight of passionate expression before it is relieved by the entry of a happier and less complicated theme in B flat major. The brilliant coda, beginning after the quiet chords which bring the music temporarily to rest on C major, is yet another transformation of the mercurial main theme.

According to Robert Schumann, to whom the Ballade No.2 in F major is dedicated, both it and its predecessor in G minor were “inspired by poems of Mickiewicz.” That, Schumann clearly states, is what Chopin told him when he played it (or part of it) in his presence in Leipzig in 1836. So, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, we can safely accept that the keyboard ballade has its origins - Chopin’s were the first of their kind - in a form of narrative poetry. And it is not at all unlikely that a Polish nationalist poet exiled in Paris, where he and Chopin were certainly known to each other, would have influenced the composer in one way or another. The problem is whether Chopin merely borrowed a title and the general idea of a poetic narrative from Adam Mickiewicz’s Ballady i romanse or whether, in spite of his avowed disapproval of programme music, he based the ballades on specific Mickiewicz poems.

Ballade No.1 in G minor Op.23 (c.1835)

The Ballade in G minor is traditionally associated with Mickiewicz’s poetic novel Konrad Wallenrod, which was first published in 1828. Chronologically, even if the work were conceived in Vienna in 1831 - and that early date is now dismissed as unreliable - some such association is clearly not impossible. Aesthetically, however, it is impossible to reconcile Mickiewicz’s bloodthirsty epic with Chopin’s romantic lyricism, dramatically articulated though it is. The Ballade in G minor is, it is true, a narrative poem - the narrator is almost as prominent as the principal characters - but, like its three successors, it is a story of vividly characterised thematic protagonists involved in harmonic adventures against a distant sonata-form background.

It begins with a short harp-like prelude which establishes the bardic personality. The narrator then introduces one of the principal thematic characters, the melancholy but excitable first subject, in G minor. The second subject is happier and more relaxed in E flat major. Goaded by the first theme, however, the second is compelled to change its mood during the course of the development, achieving full-scale eloquence in A major and, at the end of a scherzando episode based on the narrator’s theme, urgently asserting itself in E flat major again. The first subject is recapitulated in the tonic but without the second subject: all conventional expectations are swept away in a presto con fuoco coda. The narrator adds a dramatically expressive epilogue, where funereal allusions in G minor to a characteristic rhythmic feature of the second subject confirm the unhappy ending.

Ballade No.3 in A flat major Op.47 (1841)

The third Ballade, completed about six years after the First and two years after the Second, is far more subtle in construction than either of its predecessors. It is cast in two unequal parts, an introduction and a narrative, which are most ingeniously linked together before the end. The first part not only recalls the voice of the poet heard for the first time in the opening bars of the Ballade No.1 in G minor but also anticipates something of the character of the thematic protagonists to be featured later. The division between the end of the introduction and the opening of the narrative is clearly defined by a sustained chord of A flat major.

The first and principal protagonist, preceded by an outline of its rocking-horse rhythm in the right hand, is a gently lilting melody beginning in C major. It does not long remain in that key and, as the story develops, it reveals a more violent and even demonic side to its character. It reverts to C major innocence, this time to give way to a playful waltz-like theme and then to reappear in A flat major. In a sonata-form construction that return to A flat would be the beginning of the end. Here it is the beginning of a powerful development starting at the harmonic extremity of C sharp minor and culminating in a masterfully realised combination of thematic material from the introduction with the main theme of the narrative. An accelerated recall of the waltz theme acts as a brief but brilliant coda.