Скачать или смотреть Chopin Ballade No. 1 (Music + Score)

Chopin's first ballade, completed in 1835, remains the most famous of the four. It's a piece that feels like it's telling a story, though Chopin never said exactly what that story was. Some believe it was inspired by the epic poems of Adam Mickiewicz, but Chopin kept things ambiguous.

The piece opens with a Largo that feels like a narrator clearing their throat before beginning an epic tale. Then it's off to the Moderato with its lyrical main theme in G minor. What makes this ballade so gripping is how Chopin takes you through such wildly contrasting moods: the gentle, almost hymn-like second theme in E-flat major feels like a moment of peace, before everything spirals into increasingly virtuosic and turbulent territory.

Chopin keeps developing and transforming his themes, building tension through the famous coda that demands both technical accuracy and emotional abandon from the pianist. Those cascading octaves and the final headlong rush to the double-fortissimo conclusion are pure drama. Of the ballade, Schumann called it "my favourite of all [Chopin's] works". It's lyrical and violent, intimate and epic, all at once.

Performer: Lisztopher
Piano: Kawai CA901
VST: VSL Steinway D-274

Score is from the public domain and courtesy of IMSLP.