Ballade in G minor, Op.24 (1875-6)

Written in Bergen in the winter of 1875-6, not long after the incidental music for Peer Gynt, the Ballade in G minor represents Grieg in his creative prime. It is his longest work for solo piano (apart from an early Sonata) and it reflects not only the inspiration he found in Norwegian folk song and his highly developed understanding of the piano but also something of the complexity of his personality. Basically, it is a series of fourteen variations on Den nordlandske bondestand (The Northern Peasantry) which Grieg found in Ludvig Mathias Lindeman’s collection Aeldre og nyere norske fjeldmelodier (Older and Newer Norwegian Mountain Melodies). But the overall shape of the work - which, as the Ballade title confirms, transcends conventional variation form - carries profound emotional implications.

The theme itself is presented in no ordinary way. A folk tune does not lends itself naturally to a chromatic bass line like this which, drooping through as many as thirteen semitones in a row, adds an elegiac quality to the G minor tonality. Most of the first nine variations retain the same structure as the theme - two parts of eight bars each, the second part repeated - and the same tonality if not always the chromatic bass line. Some of them, like the Allegro capriccioso No 4 (a springdans) and the Allegro scherzando No 6, are entertainingly lively. But by way of the Adagio No 3, the unequal conversation between a demanding recitative and a quietly regretful answer in No 5 and the funereal associations of the Lento No.8, the tone becomes distinctly more serious. The Un poco andante No.9 is so spontaneous in its plaintive eloquence that, for the first time, it expands the variation structure beyond the symmetrical limits set by the theme.

From that point on the Ballade assumes a new dimension. It retains the variation form but with a new freedom and with a scarcely interrupted continuity as it drives towards the final bars. If it seems from the playful character of the tenth variation (Un poco allegro a alla burla) that the prevailing mood is also about to change, the triumphant con tutta forza proclamation of G major in the Meno allegro e maestoso No 12 warmly encourages the idea. The Allegro furioso No 13 thrusts the harmonies back into G minor, however, and there it stays, as the Prestissimo No 14 vehemently confirms. The most dramatic stroke of all is a sudden silence, a heavily hammered and long sustained E flat octave at the bottom of the keyboard and, as the dynamic level falls, a quiet recall of the theme in its original, elegiac form.