Overview
Introduction
Ballade No. 1 in D-flat major, S.170, is a solo piano piece by the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt, composed between 1845 and 1848. In the original edition it contained the title "Le Chant Du Croisé" or "The Chant of the Crusader". A typical performance of the piece lasts about 7 to 8 minutes.
The piece contains two themes with a short introductory passage. The main theme is reiterated 7 times with different technical obstructions each time. The second theme is placed in the after the fifth iteration. It is a march like theme (marked Tempo di Marcia). It repeats itself only twice before returning into the main theme, though it returns with a modest coda at the close of the piece.
The Ballade (ballad) No. 2 in B minor, S. 171, is a piano composition by Franz Liszt, written in 1853. Liszt plied one of his favorite genres—the programmatic one movement tone poem designed to provide both the variety and unity of a sonata or symphony. He drew his program from Gottfried August Bürger’s once widely read Gothic horror ballad Lenore. Punctuated with the grisly refrain "The dead ride quickly! Are you afraid," the poem tells of Lenore’s wild hundred-mile midnight ride with the zombie of her recently slain soldier-fiancé, toward a cemetery where their nuptials are solemnized amid a riotous gathering of skeletons and spectres. The ballad is based largely on two themes: a broad opening melody underpinned by menacing rumbles and a luminous ensuing chordal meditation. These themes are repeated a half-step lower; then march-like triplet-rhythms unleash a flood of virtuosity. Eventually, Liszt transforms the opening melody into a rocking major-key cantabile and reiterates this with ever-more grandiose exultation. The luminous chords provide a contemplative close.
