Narrativeness of piano ballades by Ferenc Liszt

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Narrativeness of piano ballades by Ferenc Liszt

Journal Title: Notes Muzyczny - Year 2016, Vol 2, Issue 6

Abstract

The 19th century piano ballade as a genre has certain specific features, the most important of which is the so-called “ballade tone”, i.e., a specific type of narration. Music expression is kept in accordance with the epic narrative principles and has its dramaturgy. Like drama characters, themes change their nature depending on the course of the story. A characteristic feature of ballades is their free form. The creative output of Ferenc Liszt covers over 700 compositions. Among this enormous number of pieces are two piano ballades: Ballade in D-flat Major (1848) and Ballade in B Minor (1853). They are a continuation of the idea of narrativeness of this genre, which we had in Chopin’s ballades. Ballade no.1 in D-flat Major, shows the richness of the composer’s creative invention manifested in his variation and transformation work. He masterly prepared numerous accompaniment variants with virtuoso elements. The form of the piece is based on a threemovement pattern. There are as many as nine interesting theme variants. Worth noticing are the changeability of texture, interesting harmonic language, expression of the piece and original pianistic figures. Liszt’s Ballade no.2 in B Minor has a much more elaborate form, is more mature pianistically, more developed in terms of texture and more complex in terms of expression. Its form corresponds with the drama in three acts with three characters – one male and two female themes. It is a drama-narrative piece which fully matches the definition of the ballade genre. Narrativeness in Liszt’s ballades is a principal creative rule to which all the elements of a music piece are adjusted. Tensions and climaxes correspond with the conflicts between the drama characters. Numerous expressions, changeable dynamics and articulation, type of texture, use of registers and sound volume – all of them are used to create a fully epic narrative. It is possible to say that piano ballades by Ferenc Liszt as drama-narrative pieces are fully in line with the ideas of Romanticism in the 19th century music.<br/><br/>

Authors and Affiliations

Krystyna Juszyńska

Keywords

Liszt piano ballade romantic music

Basic performance issues of the full voice accompaniment style in France in 1690–1750 in the light of selected treatises, part 2: The structure and harmonic language of the full voice rendering of basso continuo

It is the second article being part of the cycle describing the basic performance issues of the full voice accompaniment style in France in 1690–1750 in the light of selected treatises. In his further considerations abou...

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