Brief Summary Of The Musical 'Ballade'

790 Words2 Pages

Originally, the musical "Ballade" is inspired by Anglo-Saxon literary sources. Those poems draw from legend-like sources and develop them in romantic settings. Poets like Herder, Goethe, Schiller and Uhland are representative of this "Sturm und Drang", literally "storm and drive" or "storm and urge" movement. Conventionally translated as "storm and stress", it is a proto-Romantic movement in the German literature and music that took place from the late 1760s to the early 1780s. Individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements. The period is named for Friedrich Maximilian Klinger's …show more content…

It is a dialogue between the mother and her son. A "page of strange novelty" according to Robert Schumann. The first section sets the background, bars: 1 - 8. The mother: "Why your sword is so blood-red, Edward, Edward?" Poco piu mosso, bars 9 - 13. Edward: "Oh I killed by falcon, mother, mother!" Tempo I, bars 14 - 21. The mother: "The blood of the falcon is not that red, Edward, Edward!" Poco piu mosso, bars 22 - 26. Edward: "Oh! I killed my ginger haired horse, mother, mother!" In the second section, Allegro ma non troppo, bars: 27 - 60, the crime is narrated with Beethovenian triplets. The mother: "Your horse was old, you did not need to do that, Edward, Edward! Another unbearable crime is oppressing you, Edward, Edward!" Edward: "Oh! I killed my father. Oh! My hart aches!" The second part of this section, bars 45 - 60 depicts the malediction of Edward. "My foot will never stand on the ground. Mother! I leave you with my malediction and with the flames of the underworld, Mother! Because you made me do it!" The last part, Tempo primo, paints the lamentations of the mother. II. D Major: Andante The second Ballade is in strong contrast with the preceding one. Structured as A B C B A, it deploys three distinct …show more content…

B Minor: Intermezzo: Allegro This third "Ballade" in B minor keeps, even with its leaping and slender ecriture a dark and threatening character and remains in the context. The central part, Trio in F-sharp major, with its delicate sonorities evolves in high ranges and remains pianissimo and "ppp" all the time. Robert Schumann relates: "a demoniacal page of real splendor". IV. B Major: Andante con moto Somehow more distant from the preceding ones this last Ballade evokes the latest piano pieces of the composer. A very elegant ecriture and the minor - major shifting in the first bars is almost like some Gabriel Faure. "In what marvelous way, the melody hesitates between minor and major and finally remains lugubriously in major" wrote Schumann. The middle section in F-sharp major: "col intimissimo sentimento, ma senza troppo marcare la melodia" (with the most intimate feeling but without pointing out too much the melody), presents a blurry theme wrapped with a dense accompaniment playing two against three at both hands. Each main section is stated twice in a raising misty

Open Document