Poems for the Piano: A Century of Ballades

Introduction

Chopin’s Ballade in G minor, completed in 1835 and first published in 1836, was the first solo piano work of its kind. He later confided in Robert Schumann that he was inspired by the narrative poems—Ballads and Romances—of his Polish compatriot Adam Mickiewicz. The poet’s outspoken advocacy for Polish independence from Russia undoubtedly attracted Chopin, who expressed his outrage against Russia and solidarity with the Polish people only through his private letters and indirectly through his music.

If the romantic ballad tells a story of past legends, mixing in moral lessons and supernatural beings and other grand themes, then did Chopin have particular narratives in mind when composing his ballades? In his 1900 biography, Chopin: The Man and his Music, James Huneker writes that “there can be no doubt” that Chopin had a specific programme in mind for each of his four ballades, but wisely left no clue for us to work out any further details. Over the course of the twentieth century, opinions swung toward “ballade” being a more general description; according to James Parakilas, “Since World War II most scholars have rejected the idea that any Chopin Ballade is modelled on the particulars of any one poem.”

In light of the scholarly consensus, my contrarian nature compels me to commit very specific programs to the Chopin ballades on this album—and beyond that, to engage in wild and unfounded speculation regarding the extra-musical associations of the other five ballades here. Chopin himself would almost certainly not approve, preferring to let the absolute beauty and craftsmanship of his work speak for itself. He ridiculed Schumann’s extravagant review of his Variations on “La ci darem la mano,” Op. 2, with detailed descriptions of how the operatic characters from Don Giovanni are brought to life through the variations. He was equally scathing when his London publisher Wessel gave fanciful titles to his music (the early Nocturnes, Op. 9, were dubbed “Murmures de la Seine,” for example).

In my defence, I would argue that there is so much to gain by exploring the cultural context and personal circumstances of Chopin and the other composers, and a little bit of facile detective work is harmless as long as no one takes it too seriously. As both a performer and listener, I find that a story behind the notes brings vividness and immediacy to my musical enjoyment. In the nineteenth century, it was generally accepted that behind the G minor ballade was a strong expression of Polish nationalism, an understanding that is no longer current with modern audiences. I also strongly believe that these ballades are much more worthy of programs than many Classical works associated with trivial titles. How many more times do I need to hear today’s young pianists introduce the delicate and alluring Etude in F minor, Op. 25, No. 2 by Chopin as “The Bees,” a useless moniker that invites the worst possible pianistic interpretations?

① Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 (1835) — Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849)

Many nineteenth-century writers on Chopin (including his biographer James Huneker) and twentieth-century pianists Robert Casadesus and Alfred Cortot associated the first ballade with Mickiewicz’s Konrad Wallanrod, a tale of a warrior caught between conflicting loyalties: to his Lithuanian homeland, and to the Order of Teutonic Knights who captured him as a young boy and raised him. Underlying the plot is a thinly veiled attack against Russia and its suppression of Polish independence, a theme that was overlooked by the Russian censors but was immediately evident to the Polish resistance.

After a weighty Largo introduction—the narrator setting the stage for the action to follow—the first theme (0:36) portrays our tragic hero confronting his fate, and a warm and tender second theme (3:03) might represent a longing for his homeland, or else his wife who would later leave him, their relationship a casualty of his betrayal of the Teutonic Knights. The two themes intermingle through the main body of the ballade, though by the end the second theme has faded away, leaving the tragic hero alone and desolate (7:46). The ballade concludes with a fiery coda (8:31) in which the hero sabotages his own army to save the Lithuanian people, ensuring both his untimely death and posthumous legacy.

② Ballade No. 3 in A flat major, Op. 47 (1841) — Frédéric Chopin

If the first ballade connects with the Wallenrod patriotic tale “by almost unanimous vote” (according to Dr. Lubov Keefer in his 1946 survey), the third ballade has attracted various competing narratives. Alfred Cortot and I lean toward Mickiewicz’s Świtezianka, a fable of the Ondine nymph. The ballade’s introduction is a self-contained romance in A flat major in which Ondine’s suitor declares his undying love. To test his faithfulness, she secretly transforms into a siren and tries to seduce him, and when he succumbs to temptation she lures him into the water and drowns him in a rage. The story unfolds over a barcarolle accompaniment, as the gentle waves rock the suitor’s boat. The suitor’s winsome theme in F major (2:11) conflicts with the anguish of Ondine’s F minor laments (3:07), and as her wrath builds so does the turbulence of the stormy sea.

③ Ballade in D minor from Soirées musicales, Op. 6, No. 4 (1836) — Clara Schumann (1819–1896)

The passionate romance between Clara Wieck and the 25-year-old Robert Schumann began shortly after her sixteenth birthday in the autumn of 1835. Robert was a piano student of Clara’s father Freidrich in Leipzig and their many evenings together grew more affectionate. After a first kiss that November, Clara confessed to Robert how powerfully she was affected by him: “I thought I would faint; everything went black and I could barely hold the lamp that was lighting your way out.” Robert's hopes for a paternal blessing were dashed on the following New Years Day, when Friedrich made his disapproval clear and cut Robert off from contact with his daughter. Friedrich whisked Clara away to Dresden shortly after, and when he found out about a clandestine tryst in February he threatened to shoot Robert if he came near Clara again.

While the exact date of composition is unclear, Clara likely wrote her Ballade later in 1836 after hearing of Chopin’s first ballade (published in July), and had completed it by September when she played it for Chopin during his visit to Leipzig. Five of the six Soirées musicales borrow titles and pianistic mannerisms from Chopin: in addition to the Ballade, there is a nocturne, a polonaise, and two mazurkas. Clara probably had not seen the score of Chopin’s Ballade before writing her own as it is more clearly influenced by the melodic fluidity and ornamentations of his nocturnes, particularly the set of three Nocturnes, Op. 15.

Even if Robert was banished from the Wieck household, Clara maintained a connection to her betrothed through music. Robert’s love for Clara was secretly coded in his first piano sonata, “a solitary outcry for you from my heart” as he later confessed. She performed the sonata for private audiences in Dresden and Breslau, and wrote a musical reply in the opening theme of her Ballade, calling Robert’s name in repeated descending fifths (a reference to an important motif from his sonata, which he in turn had borrowed from one of her earlier compositions). Clara has Robert answering with an aspirational rising melody in the middle section (2:51), an altered version of the tender love aria from his sonata’s slow movement. He also gently consoles her with a slower version of his sonata’s scherzo theme (3:25), though his own dark thoughts and loneliness are betrayed by the halting footsteps of the accompanying bass line.

④ Ballade in the Form of Variations on a Norwegian Folk Song, Op. 24 (1875–6) — Edvard Grieg (1843–1907)

Grieg’s chosen folksong “The Northland Peasantry” rhapsodises about the beautiful songs of the Northerners whose culture and ways of life are not appreciated by southern folk. Grieg himself was educated in Leipzig and had the highest regard for Schumann (his favourite composer) and the other towering figures of European Romanticism, but always felt like an outsider. He would later say that he left Leipzig as stupid as when he arrived and only came into his own as a composer when he embraced the music of his native Norway.

Grieg embellished the simplicity of the original tune with a chromatic bass line and spicy harmonies; he later wrote that chromaticism was how the great composers like Bach, Mozart, and Wagner “gave expression to their most fervent thoughts,” and singled out his Ballade as an example of how he had followed in their footsteps. Shortly before its composition, Grieg had endured the death of both his parents and marital strains that threatened to tear apart his marriage. As he later confided, the ballade took form “with my life’s blood in days of sorrow and despair.” The first several variations could be musical portraits of people in Grieg’s life, with each projecting a strong and unique character. Some variations honour important composers in Grieg’s musical life: Robert Schumann in the third variation (3:39, with homage to Schumann’s Romance in F sharp major), Chopin in the fifth (6:01, echoes of the opening Largo from the G minor Ballade), and Felix Mendelssohn in the seventh (8:30, his Variations Serieuses). The eighth variation (12:01) is a funeral march with tolling bells, possibly in memory of his parents. The ninth variation might represent his marriage in conflict—a dialogue that shows love but also deep pain. The tenth variation (14:31) leads seamlessly into a grand finale that represents the artist as tragic hero—his joys, his triumphs, but ultimately his descent into despair.

⑤ Ballad in D flat major, Op. 6 (1894) — Amy Beach (1867–1944)

On the surface, Amy Beach gives us the most direct indication of her own extra-musical thoughts. Her Ballad is a piano transcription (albeit a very free and elaborate one) of her vocal setting of “Oh my luve is like a red, red rose,” by Robert Burns, later published as the third in a set of three songs, Op. 12. With a title like “Ballad”, however, is it possible that Beach’s intended narrative went further than the simple poem on which it was based?

Following her marriage to a well-off Boston doctor in 1885, Amy Beach (née Cheney) had to put her performing aspirations as a piano virtuoso to the side and instead dedicated herself to developing her compositional skills. As a frequent attendee at Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts, she would often follow with the score during performances, and even committed entire orchestrations to memory. The Ballad’s introduction adds a new chromatic flavour to the one from the original song; is it more than a coincidence that it sounds awfully like the “longing” Leitmotif from Tristan and Isolde?

The Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde made regular appearances on Boston Symphony programs in the 1880s and 90s, and Beach would have heard it many times. Not only does the Prelude’s opening get a not-so-subtle nod in the Ballad’s introduction, but the climatic ending is enhanced with torrentially powerful descending chords (8:38), very similar to Isolde’s final climax at the end of the Liebestod where she dies, singing of love, beside Tristan’s body. One other important change: Beach repeats the opening stanza in an elaborate variation (2:34), making a love duet between the pianist’s two hands with sensual chromatic twists hinting at the passion—and the pain—of the two doomed lovers.

⑥ Sonata Ballade (1938) — Roy Agnew (1891–1944)

Filled with restless energy, joyful eclecticism, and sensuality, Roy Agnew’s Sonata Ballade is a difficult work to pin down. A relatively obscure composer even during his lifetime, Agnew’s music was largely forgotten until the 1990s and relatively few details of his life are on the public record. After studying composition at the Royal College of Music in London, he returned to Australia keen to introduce the great European contemporary composers to the Antipodean public. In 1938 he began hosting a weekly radio program on the fledging Australian Broadcasting Commission featuring the latest works by composers such as Schoenberg, Szymanowski, and Stravinsky.

Agnew had a particular affinity with Scriabin’s music that could easily have gone beyond a similar harmonic language (Agnew’s harmonies are much less systematic than Scriabin’s) and into the metaphysical. One of Agnew’s teachers at the Royal College was Cyril Scott, not only a prolific composer but also a Theosophist whose mystical leanings were very close to Scriabin’s. Scott wrote extensively on music and the occult, in works like Music: Its Secret Influence Throughout the Ages (1933), in which he argues that music has the power to influence the moral and character of the society, following on from Madame Blavatsky’s writings in The Secret Doctrine (1888).

Agnew’s Sonata Ballade is a truly mystical tale. Beginning from darkness and the restlessness of our mundane existence, he introduces a love interest in the tender second theme (1:21), before demons emerge from the depths (2:59) in a wild and passionate central section. The drama hurdles forward into an explosive battle of divine forces, interrupted only by a brief dalliance in a perfumed Oriental garden (4:45). The return of the opening theme in the recapitulation is ushered in by an angel choir (7:00), before the return of the love theme (8:11). When the demons rise up again, they are quashed by the power of divine love, and the work ends in ecstatic radiance.

⑦ Ballade in D major, Op. 66 (1917) — Ignaz Friedman (1882–1948)

A lifelong touring pianist, Ignaz Friedman did his best to maintain a busy touring schedule following the outbreak of World War I in 1914. He performed where he could in Germany, Austria, and the neutral countries, dealing with cancellations, blocked trains, and strip-searches at the border. In 1916 he resolved to sit out the war in the relative quiet of Copenhagen, becoming the darling of Danish audiences and using his spare time to teach and compose. Like many pianists of his generation, Friedman had churned out salon pieces, concert arrangements, and virtuosic miniatures to titillate his adoring fans, but during his Copenhagen years his compositions became more substantial and ambitious: his Ballade, a piano quintet which would remain his greatest masterpiece, and possibly an unfinished piano concerto. If only his Danish exile had lasted a few more years, Friedman the composer may have earned a prized place in the canon of piano repertoire! But his ambitions chafed against Copenhagen’s limited horizons, and by 1919 he was already sailing the Atlantic for his American debut tour.

Friedman is best known today as an interpreter of Chopin, though music critics viewed his Chopin with a mix of qualified admiration, polite incomprehension, and outright censure. Even when he returned to his native Poland in 1907, the Kraków critics felt that his “colour and flashiness” were most fitting for Schumann’s Carnaval and much less so for the delicacies in Chopin’s third ballade. At his Montreal debut in 1921, the review in Musical Canada found that “what makes Friedman’s playing—even of Chopin—so curiously unique is its astounding virility. It was Chopin intensified as to tone at rhythm, with some of the tender poetry of Chopin eliminated, and absolutely none of the effeminate Chopin left in.”

From today’s perspective, Friedman’s wilder Chopin interpretations seem like a bygone relic, coming from an era when it was perfectly acceptable to take capricious tempos and to rewrite bravura passages in double octaves. In his day, he was pointing the way forward to a more modern understanding of Chopin, a composer whose revolutionary approach to harmony cast a shadow across the nineteenth century, influencing Schumann, Liszt, and Wagner. In 1912 he published an edition of the complete works of Chopin, together with his own revised pedalling and with detailed technical exercises appended to the Etudes. He made it clear that if Chopin were best known as an effeminate composer of miniatures, that such popular works were merely the icing on a much richer musical cake.

His Ballade in D major represents a revitalisation of the Chopin tradition, paying homage to the original four ballades but updated to reflect the chromaticism and pianism of the late Romantic era. It is possible there is a specific story behind Friedman’s composition, but it just be simply the essence of the ballade genre, telling the unknown story of a great legend from our past.

Album Credits

Recorded at the ANU School of Music, 11–12 December 2024

Audio engineer and producer: Dante Clavijo @dante.clavijo.music

Piano tuning by Nigel Leach

Cover art by Mark Rowden @artymark

CD design by Stephanie Neeman

www.neemanpianoduo.com

Further reading

Block, Adrienne Fried. Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian, The Life and Work of an American Composer, 1867–1944. Oxford University Press, 1998.

Evans, Allan. Ignaz Friedman : Romantic Master Pianist. Indiana University Press, 2009.

Keefer, Lubov. “The Influence of Adam Mickiewicz on the Ballades of Chopin.” The American Slavic and East European Review (May 1946).

Liu, JingCi. “The Influence of Frederic Chopin in Clara Schumann’s Early Piano Works: An Examination of Compositional Style and Performance Practice.” DMA dissertation (2024), University of Connecticut.