Chopin - Ballade No. 1 - Martha Argerich, Piano

The Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23, composed by Frédéric Chopin in 1831 during the composer’s early years in Vienna, was a reflection about his loneliness in the city far away from his home in Poland, where a war was happening against the Russian Empire’s oppression. The term ballade was used by Chopin in the sense of a balletic interlude or dance-piece, equivalent to the old Italian ballata, but the term may also have connotations of the medieval heroic ballad, a narrative minstrel-song, often of a fantastical character. There are dramatic and dance-like elements in Chopin’s use of the genre, and he may be said to be a pioneer of the ballade as an abstract musical form. – Martha Argerich