Ballade No.1 in G minor, Op.23

Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 was composed in 1835--36 during the composer's early years in Paris and was dedicated to Monsieur le Baron de Stockhausen, the Hanoverian ambassador to France, and reportedly inspired by Adam Mickiewicz's poem Konrad Wallenrod.[2] Chopin seemed to have been fond of the piece; in a letter to Heinrich Dorn, Robert Schumann commented that, "I received a new Ballade from Chopin. It seems to be a work closest to his genius (although not the most ingenious) and I told him that I like it best of all his compositions. After quite a lengthy silence he replied with emphasis, 'I am happy to hear this since I too like it most and hold it dearest.

The piece begins with a brief introduction which, contrary to popular belief, is not unrelated to the rest of the piece. Written in first inversion of the A flat major chord, it is a Neapolitan chord that implies a majestic aura, ending in a dissonant, questioning left hand chord D, G, and E-flat that is not resolved until later on in the piece. Though Chopin's original manuscript clearly marks an E-flat as the top note, the chord has caused some degree of controversy, and thus, some versions of the work - such as the Klindworth edition - include D, G, D as an ossia. The main section of the Ballade is built from two main themes. The brief introduction fades into the first theme, introduced at measure 8. After some elaboration, the second theme is introduced softly at measure 68. This theme is also elaborated on. Both themes then return in different keys, and the first theme finally returns again in the same key, albeit with an altered left hand accompaniment. A thundering chord introduces the coda, marked Presto con fuoco, to which the initial Neapolitan harmony re-emerges in constant dynamic forward propulsion, which eventually ends the piece in a fiery double octave scale run down the keyboard. As a whole, the piece is structurally complex and not strictly confined to any particular form, but incorporates ideas from mainly the sonata and variation forms.

Technically, many passages of the Ballade require rapid scales, very fast and large chords, octaves, and difficult fingerings.

A distinguishing feature of Ballade No. 1 is its time signature. While the other three are written in strict compound duple time, with a 6/8 time signature, Ballade No. 1 bears deviations from this. The introduction is written in 4/4 time, and the more extensive Presto con fuoco coda is written in 2/2. The rest of the piece is written in 6/4, rather than the 6/8 which characterizes the others.

Ballade No. 1 is one of the more popular Chopin pieces. It is prominently featured in the 2002 Roman Polanski film The Pianist, where an approximately four-minute cut is played by Janusz Olejniczak. It is also played in the 1944 film Gaslight and heard in the 2006 satire Thank You for Smoking. It is also briefly played in the film "Rhapsody". It is also the music for the "Black" pas de deux, the final, climactic pas de deux in John Neumeier's staging of the ballet The Lady of the Camellias, based upon the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. Many noteworthy pianists have performed and recorded the piece, including Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels, Arthur Rubinstein, Maurizio Pollini, Krystian Zimerman, Vladimir Horowitz & Alfred Cortot.

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[BasavannaPoet]

got here because of the movie"the pianist"