Alexander Boyd – Vol.4 – Chopin – CR6047

Description

Chopin’s Ballades were the first instrumental pieces given this name. Previously recognised for his ingenious innovations in small scale forms such as Mazurkas, Polonaises, Waltzes and Preludes, in the Ballades Chopin demonstrates his mastery of larger form and epic scale. Brahms, Liszt and others were to follow Chopin in writing Ballades of their own, a new genre for piano writing.

Prior to Chopin’s naming of his Ballades, the term ballade had a long history in the literary sense, telling tales with fantastical narratives and epic, tragic themes. Derived from the medieval French chanson ballade (dancing songs) the ballade originated as vocal or folk music accompanying dance. It later became a popular poetic form exploring the supernatural, and in the 19th century it was revived and embraced with enthusiasm by Romantics as a dramatic poem.

The Ballades of Chopin’s close friend, Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz are thought to have been a particular inspiration. In his collection of Poems, Ballades and Romances, the natural wrestles with the hidden and unseen, beauty with evil, the human condition with the fear of the unknown. Chopin is not known to have definitively ascribed any particular stories or characters to his Ballades, but rather created musical stories of epic emotional reach and scope, leaving the listener to imagine a narrative for themselves. Contrasting the most tender beauty with menacing drama, the Ballades take the listener on a journey that constantly surprises. Chopin explores the expressive range of the piano to its full potential, creating touching Bel Canto melody, ethereal leggiero filigree, contrasted by powerful, muscular and at times menacing pianism. He loosely employed elements of Sonata form in the structure – using two main themes, developing them and returning to them later, and all the Ballades culminate in a dramatic coda of astonishing complexity and virtuosity.

The first sketches for the 1st Ballade appeared in 1831 and the piece was completed in 1835. This Ballade, probably the best known, takes the listener on a truly romantic journey encompassing the highest of dramatic invention, capricious with its fast changing moods, colours and textures. The two main melodic themes are both introduced tenderly and intimately before returning again each time in more dramatic and uplifting forms. In response to Schumann’s dedication of Kreisleriana to Chopin in 1838, Chopin made Schumann the dedicatee of his 2nd Ballade. This time the form is simpler and clearer, with clearly defined contrasting sections. The wistful opening melody evokes the Barcarolle like gentle rocking of a boat on water, or perhaps a lullaby murmured to a child, but here the struggle between beauty and terror is brutally depicted by the sudden storm of a menacing left hand rising melody, and cascading right hand broken chords. A frenzied and agitated coda with a dancing left hand under a feverish right hand is finally broken by, unique to this Ballade, a quiet, peaceful and poignant reminder of the opening.

The 3rd Ballade is unique amongst the ballades for its persistent exuberance and relative lightness in mood, the opening melody drawing back the curtains on a beautiful sunny morning, almost as if in response to the sinister and darker elements of the 2nd Ballade. This long introduction finally gives way to a carefree and delightful, lilting dance, before
eventually the introductory theme returns in ecstatic and triumphant form, ending the piece in a major key, the only Ballade to do so. Composed not long after the 3rd Ballade, the 4th Ballade is one of the greatest masterpieces of 19th century piano music and considered to be the most interpretatively challenging of all the Ballades. It is the most melancholy and subtle of all, the beautiful slow opening waltz broken by extraordinary contrasting outbursts of passion and drama. The complexity of the writing is such that each time one listens, a new previously undiscovered moment can be appreciated. The music eventually builds to a virtuoso and seemingly final climactic end, suddenly and masterfully interrupted from nowhere by a distant chorale, as if the music is exhausted and spent, before summoning itself one last time for the final fiendish and ferocious finish.

Barcarolle, from the Italian Barcarole, meaning boatman and more specifically the songs sung by Venetian boatmen, is the only piece of its kind composed by Chopin. The form was popular among many 19th composers, notably Mendelssohn in his four Venetian gondolier songs. The Barcarolle evokes the gentle rocking of a boat and stroking of the gondoliers oar, the melody often unfolding into 3rds and 6ths, as it does in Chopin’s. Once again, he takes a miniature form and expands it into a large scale work of enigmatic beauty, using a simple melody and left hand accompaniment and developing it with the most exquisitely beautiful melodic and harmonic innovations, asking of the pianist the full range of touch, tone and dynamic range possible from an intimate feather light leggiero, to a noble and rich Bel Canto, evoking the splendour and opulence of the romantic vision of Venice. Chopin was a great proponent of the Bel Canto style and the Barcarolle is certainly one of the greatest examples of Chopin’s mastery.

An Impromptu, as the name implies, is a piece meant to illicit the impression of spontaneity and improvisation, though like Schubert, Chopin took this style and imbued it with more subtlety and complexity while still retaining the essence of the style. The 1st Impromptu Op.29 in A flat was completed in 1837 and the improvisatory flavour of the music is especially evident in the central F minor section. The 2nd Impromptu Op.36, completed in 1839 is in F# major, a key very rarely used in major works of the Romantic period, although as it happens the Barcarolle is also in F# major and one of the best examples of a larger scale work in this key.
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