Ballades (Chopin)

Form

Chopin used the term ballade in the sense of a balletic interlude or dance piece, equivalent to the old Italian ballata. However, the term may also have connotations of the medieval heroic ballad, a narrative minstrel song, often of a fantastical character. There are dramatic and dance-like elements in Chopin's use of the genre, and he is a pioneer of the ballade as an abstract musical form. The four ballades are said to have been inspired by a friend of Chopin's, poet Adam Mickiewicz. The exact inspiration for each ballade, however, needs to be clarified and disputed.

Though the ballades do not conform precisely to sonata form, the "ballade form" created by Chopin for his four ballades is a variant of sonata form with specific discrepancies, such as the mirror reprise (presenting the two expositional themes in reverse order during the recapitulation). The ballades have directly influenced composers such as Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms, who, after Chopin, wrote ballades of their own.

Besides sharing the title, the four ballades are entities distinct from each other. According to composer and music critic Louis Ehlert, "Each [ballade] differs entirely from the others, and they have but one thing in common – their romantic working out and the nobility of their motifs." Modern theorists have shown, however, that the ballades do have much in common, such as the "ballade meter" (⁶
₄ or ⁶
₈) and certain formal practices like the mirror reprise and delaying the structural dominant.