Johannes Brahms

The title Ballade was first used for a piano piece by Chopin with the publication in 1836 of his Ballade in G minor, Op. 23. Eventually he would compose four such works, in which the form is based on discursive thematic development organized in a rather free, rhapsodic manner. Some find a narrative intention in Chopin's Ballades, although the composer never mentioned any literary connections. Brahms, on the other hand, indicated a specific literary inspiration for the first of his Four Ballades, Op. 10. The piece's heading reads, "After the Scottish ballad 'Edward' in Herder's Stimmen der Völker (Voices of the Folk), leading Paul Mies to suggest that Brahms originally intended to compose a vocal work but abandoned this idea. (In 1877, Brahms would again treat the "Edward" catastrophe by setting the poem in his Four Ballads and Romances for two voices, Op. 75, No. 1.) Unlike Chopin's Ballades, Brahms' feature clear formal structures.

Composed during the summer of 1854, the Four Ballades, Op. 10, were published in 1856 by Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig. Brahms dedicated the set to lifelong friend Julius Otto Grimm.

Brahms was concerned with harmonic unity in the layout of the entire set. Opening in D minor, Ballade No. 1 closes in D major, the key of No. 2. The central section of No. 2 is in B major, which bears a relationship to B minor (the relative minor of D major), the opening key of No. 3, which itself closes in B major, the key of No. 4.

Brahms' adroit exploitation of key relationships in the fourth Ballade betray the tendency of nineteenth-century composers to blur the distinction between major and minor modes.

Despite the close of the third Ballade on B major, and the B major key signature of the fourth Ballade, Brahms opens No. 4 with a B minor arpeggio, only to reiterate the passage in the next measure on B major. As we will see, this is an anticipatory gesture with long-range implications. The arpeggio figure continues throughout the A section of the two-part, ABA'B' piece, while the melody floats restfully above, generally moving one note per 3/4 measure. Brahms' predilection for variation surfaces after the literal repeat of the opening theme, which is followed by a lengthy sub-section based on a variation of the first theme. A shift to 6/4 meter and B major herald the beginning of the central section, in which the melody, suspiciously similar to that of section A, is buried in the middle of busy triplet figures. After following the same pattern of repetition we hear section A, section B closes on the dominant, F sharp major, and gives way to the altered return of A. Skipping the repeat, Brahms rewrites the second half of A, using block chords to present an inverted version of the original melody. Near the end of the section we hear a more easily recognizable reference to the melody, shortly before the modified return of B. As the B section unfolds on B minor we become aware of the implications of the B minor arpeggio in the very first measure. Cut to nearly half its original size, the section continues in B minor until the last few measures, witnessing a shift to the major. Brahms' tonal flip-flopping at the end makes it seem as though he has closed a minor key piece in the major, when the piece was in the major all along.