With remarkable complexity and often eliciting intense emotions, Chopin’s ballades are commonly recognized as his “finest achievements” @brownBalladeIi2001. Apart from music-theory oriented analysis, we can trace the revival of the ballade genre to genric and formal origins of Chopin’s ballades.
Recordings
Since Chopin’s ballades are well-known pieces in a Romantic context and the analysis presented here is not music-theory based, no specific audio clips will be used for the analysis. In spite of that, it may still serve some interest to choose specific recordings of the ballades for your reference. Unsurprisingly, there are an incredible number of recordings to choose from. For Chopin’s Ballade No. 4, based on personal preference and recommendation from the literature, Pollini’s recording is preferred due to its being expressive without being overly delicate, which is a problem found within Zimerman’s recording @samsonChopinFourBallades1992 p. 43. For simplicity, we can use Pollini’s album Chopin: Ballades Nos.1-4 for all four ballades, which can be found on YouTube and Spotify.
Why ballades?
Chopin’s ballades may be the first adaptation of the ballade genre onto the piano, but they were certainly not the first ballades @brownBalladeIi2001. The curious history of the ballade genre brings some nuance to Chopin’s use of the genric title.
Early Ballades
To give more context, before the ballade genre was used in a post-classical context, it was “[o]ne of the three formes fixes that dominated French song and poetry in the 14th and 15th centuries” @wilkinsBallade2001. As such, ballades as a musical form can be considered programme music, as any lyrical and poetic content would automatically bestow the music a concrete connection to real-world topics. In fact, the ballade was “throughout the history the preferred form for the serious love song” @wilkinsBallade2001. Though perhaps unfortunately for the genre, ballades had been completed separated from music due to increasing musical complexity---poems had to be written without being set to music @wilkinsBallade2001. The role bewteen music and the text would reverse roles in the post-classical context, however, as we will see.
Revival
As aforementioned, Chopin was the first to use the ballade title for piano compositions, and many composers---Brahms, Debussy, Liszt, to name a few---followed suit. In a sense, the role between text and music had been reversed for ballades in the post-classical context, as only the musical genre is being revived, with a complete disregard for the poetic genre.
What changed?
Unlike early ballades, which were abandoned by poets, composers made ballades but had foregone the text instead. Even though there was not any text to begin with, ballades were still called narrative; for instance, part of the ballades’ narrative qualities were often ascribed to their compound duple metric structure @samsonChopinFourBallades1992 p. 73, @brownBalladeIi2001. We will dive deeper into what gives his ballades the special narrative quality soon.
The poetic disconnection
By titling his works ballades, Chopin unavoidably attached a literary connotation to them. Unlike many ballades that followed his, however, he seemed to have not explicitly related his ballades to any specific texts or themes @brownBalladeIi2001. Without doubt, people have challenged this idea and named relevant poems by Adam Mickiewicz, a friend of Chopin, even though the composer himself had never affirmed such connections @keeferInfluenceAdamMickiewicz1946. By disregarding the unsubstantiated connection, we can actually regard Chopin’s music as absolute music instead of programme music which the early ballades were. In this sense, not only did Chopin evolve the genre by completely removing the text from ballades, he also deviated from the expected literary qualities of the ballade genre, enabling complete musical freedom.
Ballades without words
One fun fact is that “early advertisements for Op. 23 included the description ohne Worte (without words), establishing immediately a connection with vocal music” @samsonChopinFourBallades1992. Without words, the quality of the ballade was preserved through the expressive prowess of music alone, and Chopin was the first to demonstrate it. It was common for critics to praise the narrative quality---some even called the ballades “poetical stories” @samsonChopinFourBallades1992. This likely was made possible thanks to the Romanticism that permeates his music, which enabled easier resonance to the listener by shifting music to a subjective point of view.
Roots in sonata form
Although early ballads often share a “I-I-II” structure, the ballade “rests solidly on the foundations of a sonata-form design” instead, completely renovating the genre @wilkinsBallade2001, @samsonChopinFourBallades1992 p. 8. Despite the inspirations form sonata form, specifically the use of multiple thematic materials and reuse in the end, Chopin’s ballades would often deviate from the form in the ending, such as the keys of the thematic materials. Moreover, according to Samson, the sonata form under Chopin builds up intensity towards the end and often has a closing section reflecting the brilliant style found in other nineteenth-century works, giving the works an “dramatic and expressive aim” @samsonChopinFourBallades1992 p. 8. As such, Chopin imbued life into the ballade genre by incorporating a Romantic appeal that may just be the key to emulate almost-lyrical expressive and compensate for the lack of textual content that makes music easier to relate to. The combination of serious musical forms and ballade---a popular form in contrast---could have been integral in the genre taking off. It seemed that listeners at the time liked the ballades so much that they were “vulgarised” @samsonChopinFourBallades1992.
Symmetry
Continuing the discussion of form, the ballades take root in sonata form with several modifications. Interestingly, symmetries in structure are pervasive in all of Chopin’s ballades---the reprise of the thematic materials are presented in the opposite order than in the introduction @samsonChopinFourBallades1992 p. 46. Using Ballade No. 1 as an example, Samson notes the use of the tension-building theme I material at the closing statement. By positioning the climactic moment in the ending, Chopin subverts the sonata form, resulting in a narrative-like ending.
Melange of genres
A closer inspection of Chopin’s ballades reveals that under the hood the ballades houses other genres such as a slow waltz and a barcarolle for different parts of the score @samsonChopinFourBallades1992. Such a genric infusion may have helped divide sections for the ballades’ narration. A possibility is that features of each genre including meter, melodic contour, etc., may have mood-swinging qualities to imitate the ebbs and flows of an actual narrative.
High- and low-brow
In Chopin’s ballade we see a similar mixing of high and low music---for Chopin’s time, sonata form being high-brow, genres contained within the ballades such as slow waltzes being low-brow---as postmodernist music. Although Romanticism and postmodernism are a few movements apart, we can see traces of the latter in Chopin’s music. Indeed, such a mix between high brow and low brow at his time was unique at his time and also “directly attributable to this play on popular genres” @samsonChopinFourBallades1992.
Contemporaries
The publication of Chopin’s first ballade seemed to have inspired other composers to compose ballades as an instrumental genre. For instance, both Liszt and Franck composed ballades that “follow Chopin’s in not being associated with particular literary sources” @brownBalladeIi2001. Even Brahms composed a ballade, perhaps having changed his mind thanks Chopin since some features of the ballade suggested that he “may have originally planned [his ballade] as a vocal work in strophic form” @brownBalladeIi2001. There are no shortages of instrumental ballades composed after Chopin’s first ballade, either; a quick search would reveal more than a score of piano ballades by various composers.
Genric evolution
To some, the changes that the ballade underwent under the hands of Chopin may have been too great as to not have much relation to the early ballads anymore apart from the superficial literary connotation. Such a belief may be true to some extent, but the fact that the ballade genre survived and prospered again is indubitable. In fact, the changes Chopin introduced only helped preserve the genre rather than defacing it. Chopin’s “subversion” of the genre, “which naturally depends on … correspondence between title and content, can actually strengthen a generic [sic], clarifying its terms through their temporary falsification” @samsonChopinFourBallades1992.
Conclusion
Being masterpieces in their own right, Chopin’s ballades served as a bridge between the early ballade genre and the Romantic era, rekindling this kind of art after more than a century of dormancy. Despite the many changes (such as the formal modifications and most importantly the lack of textual connection) that the revived genre underwent, it had only became more defined in the new era. How Chopin revived an originally poetic and musical genre into a strictly musical-only genre offers insight into the unparalleled expressiveness of absolute music.