No, for all of Brahms's admiration of Chopin, his ballades really aren't much like Chopin's

Ballade is also a typeface -- or, more precisely, a font: Ballade-Bold.

ballad  n  1. a.  A narrative poem, often of folk origin and intended to be sung, consisting of simple stanzas and usually having a recurring refrain.  b.  The music for such a poem.  2.  Music  A popular song especially of a romantic or sentimental nature.

ballade  n.  1.  A verse form usually consisting of three stanzas of eight or ten lines each along with a brief envoy, with all three stanzas and the envoy ending in the same one-line refrain.  2.  Music  A composition, usually for the piano, having the romantic or dramatic quality of a ballad.

-- The American Heritage Dictionary of the
English Language, Third Edition (1992)

A BALLADE BY CHOPIN -- No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23


Alfred Cortot, piano. Victor, recorded in New York City, Dec. 27, 1926

Josef Hofmann, piano. Live recording from the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, Nov. 28, 1937

AND ONE BY BRAHMS -- in D minor, Op. 10, No. 1


Wilhelm Kempff, piano. DG, recorded in the Beethovensaal, Hannover (Germany), February 1972

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, piano. Live performance from Lugano, 1981

[Now, having heard in yesterday's pre-post ("This jolly Brahms duet really isn't part of our 'work unit,' but we kind of have to hear it about now") the vocal-duet setting Brahms did a couple of decades later of the Herder ballad that inspired this ballade, we can appreciate more fully the grimness of the setting.]

by Ken

We've been peeking at the fascinating process by which Brahms acquired mastery of musical forms. Our view of the process, we should note, is seriously hampered by the fiercely high standards the composer maintained, which caused him to destroy so much music which in his view didn't meet his standards, which he tended to think, especially when he looked back at his younger years, were rather too low than too high. So we really don't get to hear him experimenting much. What we hear are the results of experiments that he considered to have had a satisfactory outcome.

We came to this line of inquiry, for those who may still be wondering, by working backwards through Brahms's long, arduous path to the creation of a symphony, a goal he thought early on would be the achievement that really put him on the international compositional map. Luckily for him and us, he managed to fashion a rather spectacularly successful career even without managing the symphonic feat, which didn't come till his Op. 60.


WHY IS BRAHMS'S EARLIEST SURVIVING WORK HIS 'OP. 4'?

Of course, when it came, Brahms's First Symphony was a blockbuster. Which may have been part of his problem early on: He really seems to have thought that his first symphony had to be a blockbuster. At a number of points in his career we can see him fudging the numbers out of consideration for the impact he wanted to make. Like with this miraculous little Scherzo we first heard several weeks ago --

BRAHMS: Scherzo in E-flat minor, Op. 4


Wilhelm Kempff, piano. DG, recorded in the Beethovensaal, Hannover (German), March 1958

Julius Katchen, piano. Decca, recorded in Decca Studio No. 3, West Hampstead (London), 1964
The Scherzo in E-flat minor apparently is the earliest work that survived Brahms's manuscript wrecking ball. How, then, does it come by the opus number 4? It seems the composer thought it too modest in impact to represent him officially until he'd published two piano sonatas (Opp. 1 and 2) and the clutch of six songs he let see the light of day as Op. 3.


FOR ALL THAT BRAHMS ADMIRED CHOPIN'S
BALLADES, HE HARDLY COPIED THEM

Last week ("Of course it was possible for the young Brahms to be aware of Chopin's scherzos and ballades without in any way imitating them") we encountered the curious notion that unspecified "musical scholars" consider the E-flat minor Scherzo, "despite the composer’s denial," as "obviously show[ing] a 'dependence' on Chopin’s scherzi."

So we did the obvious thing: listened to a Chopin scherzo, specifically the second of the four (in B-flat minor, Op. 31). And while it's clear that Brahms was inspired by the new kind of imagination Chopin brought to writing for the piano, his Op. 4 Scherzo doesn't have much of anything else in common with Chopin's. I don't know whether "musical scholars" feel that Brahms's Op. 10 Ballades also show an obvious dependence on Chopin's four great ballades, but again it seems clear that he knew them, admired them tremendously (I don't think it's a coincidence that he wrote a set of four, the number of ballades -- and scherzos, for that matter -- that Chopin composed), and went very much his own way.

So now I propose that we listen to the Chopin ballades, because how much fun will that be? And then we can listen again to Brahms's Op. 10. In both cases we've got what I think is a dandy assortment of kinds of performances.


SO HERE'S HOW BALLADES BY CHOPIN GO

CHOPIN: Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23


Vladimir Horowitz, piano. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded live in Carnegie Hall, May 9, 1965

Agustin Anievas, piano. EMI, recorded in Abbey Road Studio No. 1, London, June 1975

CHOPIN: Ballade No. 2 in F, Op. 36


Arthur Rubinstein, piano. RCA, recorded in Manhattan Center, New York City, Apr. 29, 1959

Ivan Moravec, piano. Connoisseur Society-VAI, recorded in New York City, 1967

CHOPIN: Ballade No. 3 in A-flat, Op. 47


Tamás Vásáry, piano. DG, recorded in the Beethoven-Saal, Hannover (Germany), April 1965

Van Cliburn, piano. RCA, recorded in Webster Hall, New York City, May 31, 1961

CHOPIN: Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52


Sviatoslav Richter, piano. Praga, recorded live in Prague, Feb. 21, 1960

Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano. Decca, recorded in London, c1978


NOW LET'S HEAR AGAIN HOW BRAHMS'S OP. 10 BALLADES GO

Eventually I want to say something more about the Brahms set, starting with the fact that it is indeed a set. You could certainly play any of these pieces -- noticeably more compact than Chopin's ballades -- individually, but really they're meant to complement each other, sometimes continuing or completing, sometimes challenging each other. Also, if we go back to the basic meaning of "ballad" and "ballade," as we saw them at the top of this post, I think it's clear that Brahms had some real balladeering in mind. It's not that they literally tell stories, but that stories are happening in them, stories that involve people, spirits, and especially places. I can't help thinking that these are outdoor pieces, that they are imbued with your common German Romantic pleasure in nature, something that just doesn't seem to me part of Chopin's musical makeup.

BRAHMS: Ballades (4), Op. 10:
i. After the Scottish ballad: "Edward" in Herder's "Voices of the People" (Andante)
ii. Andante
iii. Intermezzo: Allegro
iv. Andante con moto

[ii. at 3:44; iii. at 10:06; iv. at 14:18] Wilhelm Kempff, piano. DG, recorded in the Beethovensaal, Hannover (Germany), February 1972

[ii. at 4:01; iii. at 9:52; iv. at 13:53] Arthur Rubinstein, piano. RCA, recorded in RCA Italiana Studio, Rome, June 10-12, 1970

[ii. at 4:56; iii. at 10:45; iv. at 14:34] Julius Katchen, piano. Decca, recorded in Decca Studio No. 3, West Hampstead (London), 1964

[ii. at 4:43; iii. at 11:45; iv. at 16:07] Emil Gilels, piano. DG, recorded live in Turku (Finland), Sept. 8-10, 1975

[ii. at 4:38; iii. at 11:52; iv. at 15:58] Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, piano. Live performance from Lugano, 1981

NEXT UP: For Brahms, slow movements seem to have clicked from the start.

#