Ballades, Op. 10 (Brahms)

Music#

Brahms’s ballades are arranged in two pairs of two, the members of each pair being in parallel keys. The first ballade was inspired by a Scottish poem “Edward” found in a collection Voices of the Peoples in Their Songs compiled by Johann Gottfried Herder. It is also one of the best examples of Brahms’s bardic or Ossianic style; its open fifths, octaves, and simple triadic harmonies are supposed to evoke the sense of a mythological past. # D minor. Andante # D major. Andante # B minor. Intermezzo. Allegro # B major. Andante con moto The tonal center of each ballade conveys an interconnectedness between the four pieces: the first three each include the key signature of the ballade that follows it somewhere as a tonal center, and the fourth ends in the key signature of D major/B minor despite cadencing in B major. Brahms returned to the wordless ballade form in writing the third of the Six Pieces for Piano, Op. 118. His Op. 75 vocal duets titled “Ballads and Romances” include a setting of the poem “Edward”—the same that inspired Op. 10, No. 1.

External links#

• , Michael Noble
• “Brahms: Ballade Op. 10 No. 1”, recording by Sevgi Giles, program notes by Joseph DuBose, ClassicalConnect.com