From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the instrumental ballade that was popular in the 19th century.
For the medieval French ballade see
Ballade
.
A
ballade
is a piece of
music
, usually for
piano
. It has several tunes, and one can easily imagine that it is telling a
story
(a
ballade
is a
medieval
French song
which tells a story).
The first
composer
who used the title “ballade” for his piano pieces was
Frederic Chopin
. He wrote four ballades. They are quite free in form. Chopin does not tell us about any particular story he had in mind. Perhaps they are just musical stories. They are four of his finest works.
Later on other composers also wrote ballades:
Cesar Franck
and
Franz Liszt
in particular.
Johannes Brahms
wrote ballades for piano which are quite like songs in their form.
Edvard Grieg
wrote a ballade which was based on a
Norwegian
song.
Gabriel Faure
wrote a ballade for piano and orchestra. Some composers wrote ballades for orchestra, but they are really like short
symphonic poems
.