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The Form of Chopin's "Ballade," Op. 23Author(s): Karol BergerSource: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer, 1996), pp. 46-71Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/746667

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7/17/2019 The Form of Chopin's Ballade, Op. 23

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T h e

o r m

o f

Ch opin s

Bal lade ,

O p

2 3

KAROLBERGER

The main

challenge facing

a

composer

of

a

relatively long

and

complex

work is

that of

continuity.

A

short

piece may

be

built

from

a

single phrase,

or a few

phrases arranged

n a

simple pattern

(such

as

Chopin's

favorite,

and

infinitely

varied,ABA).

In a

longer

work,

how-

ever,

the

question

arises: When the end of a

phrase

has been

reached,

what comes next?

Change

by

itself

is

easy

to achieve:

it is

enough

to

string

one

phrase

after another. The

difficul-

ties

begin

when one

wants not

just

one-phrase-

after-another

but

a continuous

discourse,

a

"configuration"

(to

use Paul Ricoeur's

term)

in

which "one-after-the-other"

becomes "one

because-of-the-other,"

a

whole rather than a

heap-that

is,

when

the

form

of the work is

"narrative"

as

opposed

to

"lyric."

In

a

separate

essay,

I

have

explained why

one

might

want to

understand narrative

and

lyric

as

the two most fundamental

forms

of

compo-

sition.'

In a

narrative

(ortemporal)form, partssucceed one anotherin a determined

order,

and

their

succession is

governed by

the relation-

ships

of

causing

and

resulting by necessity

or

probability.

On the other

hand,

in a

lyrical

(atemporal)

form,

the

parts,

whether

existing

simultaneously

or

succeeding

one

another,

are

governed by

the

relationship

of the

necessary

or

probable

mutual

implication.

Thus,

in

creat-

ing

a narrative

work,

one must not

only give

each

phrase

a function

within the

whole,

but

also

establish,

for

instance,

that the

later

phrases

are in

some

way

caused or

prepared by

some-

thing

that

happened

earlier

(although

not nec-

19th-Century Music XX/1 (Summer 1996).@by The Re-

gents

of the

University

of California.

'See

my

"Narrativeand

Lyric:

Fundamental

Poetic

Forms

of

Composition,"

in

Musical

Humanism and Its

Legacy:

Essaysin Honor of Claude V.Palisca, ed. N. K. Bakerand

B. R.

Hanning (Stuyvesant,

N.Y., 1992),pp.

451-70.

46

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essarily

in

the

immediately preceding

phrase).

The

relationships

of

causing

and

resulting

are

the

main

means

of

achieving

narrative

conti-

nuity.

In

identifying

the main

problem

of

any large,

complex,

narrative

form with

continuity

and

its solution

with

probabilistic

causality,

one

need

not see either

issue

as

being

faced

only

by

the

composer.

The

listener

and the

performer

face

the same

problem

and have the same

means

of

solving

it at their

disposal.

Once

they

as-

sume

that

they

are

dealing

with a

single

work,

performersand listeners must attempt to de-

termine

(by

continuously proposing,

trying

out,

and

revising hypotheses,

in the

process

of

play-

ing

or

listening)

how the whole

is divided

into

parts

and

what function

each

part

has in

mak-

ing up

the

whole.2

And once

they

assume

that

the work

is

narrative,

they

must then look

for

the

relationships

of

causing

and

resulting

among

the

parts.

Both the problem and its solution pertainto

the structure

of

the work

itself,

as I shall

dem-

onstrate.

Neither

the

composer's

nor the

performer's

and

the listener's

thought

processes

will matter

here;

rather

what matter

primarily

are

the

constitution

and

significance

of the

world that the

composer's

work

presents

as an

occasion for the

performer's

and listener's

in-

terpretations-the

world

that,

after

all,

is al-

ways

someone's

interpretation

(in

this

case,

my own).

But it

would not

be

surprising

if

the

young Chopin

consciously

shared

the classicist

ambition

to create

wholes

rather than

heaps,

since this

was

clearly

the tenor of

the music

education that

he received

in Warsaw.

Indeed,

at the

beginning

of his

stay

in

Paris,

he received

a

letter

from his

composition

teacher,

J6zef

Elsner, writing

from Warsaw

on

27

November

1831,

advising

him that "the

concept

of the

whole

in

the work

is the mark

of a true

artist;

a

craftsman

puts

one stone

on

another,

places

one beam

on another."3

What

follows, then,

is an

exercise

in formal-

ist close readingof, in this case, Chopin's First

Ballade

in

G

Minor,

op.

23

(published

in

1836).

This is a silent

imaginary performance,

a read-

ing

that would be

followed most

profitably

with

the

score

in

hand.

Elsewhere,

in a

companion

essay,

Ihave

attempted

to show how one

might

subject

the

results of such

a

reading

to

a

further

interpretation

and

might

move

beyond

formal-

ism,

without

sacrificing

its

insights

and with-

out falling into the familiar trapat the bottom

of

which

waits,

grinning,

Hermann Kretz-

schmar.4

I

I

consider first the

"punctuation

form,"

the

way

the work is articulated

into a

hierarchy

of

parts

by

means

of

stronger

and weaker ca-

dences.5

Form,

after

all,

involves

a

relationship

between the parts and the whole, and if the

form is

temporal,

the

parts

succeed one an-

other.

In

the

last two

centuries,

musical form

has been

commonly

thought

of as

produced by

the

manipulation

of two

factors,

key

and theme.

The musical

form,

on this

view,

results from

an interaction

of a tonal

plan consisting

of

a

succession

of stable and unstable tonal areas

and a thematic

plan consisting

of an

exposi-

tion,

development,

and

recapitulation

of

themes.

This view

suppresses

a much

older,

"rhetorical"

onception

(Dahlhaus's

term),6

till

well remembered

by

theorists

in

the late

eigh-

teenth

century, whereby

a form results

in

the

KAROL

BERGER

Chopin's

Ballade,

op.

23

21

have

argued

that

the

unity

of the work

is the reader's

necessary,

not

optional,

assumption

in

"Diegesis

and

Mi-

mesis: The Poetic Modes and

the Matter of

Artistic Pre-

sentation,"Journalof Musicology

12

(1994),

407-33;

and I

have discussed the

temporal

nature

of the

process

of musi-

cal

interpretation

in

"Toward

a

History

of

Hearing:

The

Classic

Concerto,

A

Sample

Case,"

in Convention in

Eigh-

teenth-

and

Nineteenth-Century

Music:

Essays

in

Honor

of

Leonard

G.

Ratner,

ed. W.

J.Allanbrook,J.

M.

Levy,

and

W. P.

Mahrt

(Stuyvesant,

N.Y., 1992), pp.

405-29.

3"Pojqcie

calosci

w dziele znamieniem

jest

prawdziwego

artysty;

rzemie4lnik

stawia

kamienf

na

kamiefi, belkq

na

belkp

kladzie"

(Fryderyk Chopin, Korespondencia,

ed.

Bronislaw

Edward

Sydow,

vol.

I

[Warsaw, 1955], p. 198).

(All

translations

in

this article are mine unless otherwise

indicated.)

4See

my "Chopin's

Ballade

Op.

23

and the Revolution

of

the

Intellectuals,"

in

Chopin

Studies

2,

ed.

John

Rink

and

Jim

Samson

(Cambridge,

1994),

pp.

72-83.

5Foran introduction to the

concept

of

"punctuation

form"

and for an

explanation

of the

punctuation terminology

used

here,

see

my

"The First-MovementPunctuation Form

in

Mozart's Piano

Concertos,"

in Mozart's

Piano Concer-

tos:

Text, Context,

Interpretation,

ed. N.

Zaslaw

(Ann

Ar-

bor, 1996),pp.

239-59.

6Carl

Dahlhaus,

"Das rhetorische

Formbegriff

H. Chr.

Kochs und die Theorie der

Sonatenform,"

Archiv

fiir

Musikwissenschaft

35

(1978),

155-77.

47

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19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

first

place

from

"punctuation"

(to

speak

with

Koch),7

an articulation

of the

musical

discourse

by

means of

cadences

of

varying

strength.

The

cadentialpunctuationarticulatesthe whole into

successive

parts

and

provides

the

framework

within

which

the

respective

roles of

other for-

mal

factors,

of

keys

and

themes,

can be under-

stood.

By

the

1830s,

theorists

lost

much

of the

interest

in cadences

and

punctuation

that

ani-

mated their

predecessors

from

the

sixteenth

through

the

eighteenth

centuries.

Cadence

was

too

conventional

an

object

to

attract

much

at-

tention in an age that appreciatedoriginality

above

all

else and

found

it

in the

uniqueness

of

the

thematic

and

harmonic

invention

and ma-

nipulation.

But this

lack

of theoretical

interest

should

not blind

one to the

continued

impor-

tance

of

punctuation

in the

practice

of

a com-

poser

for

whom the

music of

Bach

and Mozart

continued

to

be

a

living

presence.

The

main

musical

discourse

of the

G-Minor

Ballade, the Moderato (in 6; mm.

9-208),8

is

framed

on

both

sides,

by

the

Largo9

ntroduc-

tion

(in

C;

mm.

1-8)

and the Presto

con fuoco

coda

(in

0;

mm.

209-64).

The two

parts

of the

frame could not

be less balanced: at the

begin-

ning, a mere eight measures, without so much

as a hint

of cadence

either

internally

or at the

end,

articulated

only by

brief

rests,

as

if

the

speaker

were short

of breath

or,

better,

still

turning

in

his

mind the

subject

of the about-to-

be-opened

story;

at the

end,

fifty-six

measures

7Heinrich

Christoph

Koch,

Versuch

einer

Anleitung

zur

Composition,

3 vols.

(Leipzig,

1782-93).

8Throughout

his

article,

I

measure

a section

from

its

first

melodic

downbeat,

no matter

how

long

the

preceding

up-

beat,

to

its last

melodic

downbeat,

even

when

the

first

melodic

downbeat

of the

next section

is simultaneous

with

this

last

downbeat

(i.e.,

even

when

the two

phrases

are

"elided"),or when the upbeatof the next section follows

immediately

in

the

same measure

(and

the

two

phrases

are

"linked").

9Largo

s the

indication

in

Chopin's

autograph

(formerly

in the

collection

of

Gregor

Piatigorski,

Los

Angeles)

and

in

the

French

first

edition

(Paris,

1836),

which was

certainly

prepared

on

the basis

of this

autograph

and

probably

proof-

read

by

the

composer.

In the

German

first

edition

(Leipzig,

1836),

the

indication

is

Lento. Of

the

two

principal

mod-

ern

editors

of

the

Ballade,

Ewald

Zimmermann

chooses

the

autograph

and

the

Schlesinger

edition

as the

basis

of

his

text,

implicitly

rejecting

the

readings

of

the

Breitkopf

and

Hartel

edition as inauthentic (see the "Kritischer

Bericht"

accompanying

Fr6deric

Chopin,

Balladen,

ed.

Ewald

Zimmermann

[Munich,

1976],

p.

3),

whereas

Jan

Ekier

argues

for the

authenticity

of

the

German

first edi-

tion, claiming

that

it was

"basedon

corrected

proofs

of

F

[the

French

first

edition]

on

which

Chopin

made a

number

of

additional

changes"

"Critical

Notes"

to

Fred6ric

Chopin,

Balladen,

ed.

Jan

Ekier

[Vienna,

1986], p.

xxi;

for detailed

arguments

on

which

this

conclusion

is

based,

see the

Komentarze

ir6ddowe

published

with

Fryderyk

Chopin,

Ballady, Wydanie

Narodowe

A.1,

ed.

Jan

Ekier

[Cracow,

1970]).

Ekier's

claims

for the

authenticity

of the German

first edition do not convince. (Compare also Zofia

Chechlinfska,

"The

National

Edition

of

Chopin's

Works,"

Chopin

Studies

2

[1987],

7-19.)

He

asserts,

for

instance,

that

a

change

of

tempo

indication

was too

major

a

revision

to

have

been

introduced

by

anyone

other than

the com-

poser,but he himself refers

to a number

of

Chopin's

works

where

tempo

indications

differ between

the

French and

German

first

editions,

without

being

able

to

show that

these

differences

can

be attributed

to

Chopin.

Similarly,

he claims

that

the celebrated

Breitkopf

and

Hirtel

reading

of the

left hand

in

m.

7,

with

d

instead

of

eb1,

represents

too

important

a revision

to

have been

introduced

without

the

composer's

authorization,

but since-as

Ekier

himself

notes-the

revision

corrects

the

parallel

fifths between

the

right

and left hands

(mm.

6-7),

it

might

well have

been

introduced

by

a

pedantic

house editor

in

Leipzig.

By

claim-

ing

that

Breitkopf

and

Hirtel

based

their

text on

corrected

proofs of the Schlesinger edition, Ekier ignores the fact

that

a

manuscript

of the

Ballade,

whether

the

composer's

autograph

or a

copy,

was

still

in the

possession

of

the

Leipzig

publishers

in

1878

(see

their

letter

to

Chopin's

sister,

Izabela

Barciflska,

dated

Leipzig,

1

February

1878,

quoted

and

discussed

in

KrystynaKobylafiska,

Rekopisy

Utwor6w

Chopina:

Katalog,

vol.

I

[Cracow,

1977],

p.

126;

see also

Kobylafiska,

Frederic

Chopin:

Thematisch-

bibliographisches

Werkverzeichnis,

ed.

Ernst

Herttrich,

trans.Helmut

Stolze

[Munich, 1979],

p.

46).

Most

likely,

the

German

first

edition

was based

on

this

manuscript

andnever

proofread

by

the

composer.

(See,

however,

n.

19

below.) This would be fully consistent with Chopin'snor-

mal

publishing

practices,

as described

by

Jeffrey

Kallberg

("Chopin

n

the

Marketplace:

Aspects

of the

International

Music

Publishing

Industry

in

the

First

Half

of the

Nine-

teenth

Century,"

Notes 39

[1982-83],

535-69,

795-824):

"Throughout

his

career,

he

would

ordinarilygive

an

auto-

graph

manuscript

to

the

French

publisher

for

use

in en-

graving

he edition.

...

In his

middle

years

(roughly

1835-

41), copyists

were allowed

to

read over

proofs,

and

at

least

some

of the

time,

Chopin

would

check

over

these

copyist-

corrected

proofs

before

submitting

them

to the

publisher.

But

during

these

years,

Chopin

did

not

entirely

relinquish

proof-reading ... [p. 551]. Until mid-1835, Chopin's Ger-

man

editions

were

engraved

from

printed

proofs

originat-

ing

in France.

From ate

1835

through

the

remainder

of

his

career,

manuscripts

were

as a

rule

sent

eastward.

As

in

France,

the

years

1835

to

1841 saw

copyists'

manuscripts

employed

along

with

autographs

....

Most

of the

manu-

scripts

were

reviewed

by

Chopin

prior

to

being

forwarded

to

Leipzig

.

.

[pp.

808-09].

While

the

composer

in

his

early years

and

once

or

twice

later

sent

proofs

of

his

music

to

Germany

to

serve

as

engraver's

copy,

no case

is

known

where

he corrected

proof

sheets

engraved

by

one

of

his

German

publishers.

Once

his

music

in whatever

form

...

left his handsforLeipzig,Vienna, or anotherGermanpub-

lishing

center, Chopin's

ability

to

oversee

the

musical

text

ceased"

(pp.

815-16).

An

important

additional

consideration

should

be

men-

48

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of

emphatic

peroration,

ending

(in

m.

250)

with

a cadence

whose

powers

of

closure

are

enhanced

as much

by

the

length

of the dominant

preced-

ing the final tonic (mm. 246-49) as by the dura-

tion

of the

appendix

prolonging

the tonic

(mm.

250-64),

and

articulated

internally

by

three

weaker

cadences

(mm.

212,

216,

224).

In

spite

of

(or

rather

because

of)

the introduction's

hesi-

tant

and

open

character

at the

beginning,

the

design

is

insistently goal-oriented

and closed

at

the end.

This

is a discourse

in search of

an

aim.

Once the

aim

is

reached,

it

is

repeatedly

stressed. One could imagine a number of ways

in which the

"speaker"

might

have eased

his

way

into the

Moderato,

but

after the

Presto

absolutely

nothing

remains

to

be said.

The Moderato

itself

preserves

unmistakable

traces of the

sonata-allegro

tradition.

The

regu-

lar

first

period

(mm. 9-90),

to

speak

in

punctua-

tion terms

(or,

in thematic

terms,

the

exposi-

tion),

consists of

two balanced

(antecedent-con-

sequent) phrases (mm. 9-36 = 8 mm. + 20 mm.;

and

mm. 68-82

=

8

mm.

+

7

mm.),

the

first

followed

by

three

appendixes

prolonging

the

final cadential

tonic of the

phrase

(mm. 36-44,

45-48,

and

49-56)

and the second

by

one such

appendix

(mm. 83-90).

The

two

phrases

are

connected by a twelve-measure unpunctuated

and

uncadenced

transition

(mm. 56-67).

As is

the

norm

in

Chopin's

sonata

practice,

the ab-

breviated

ast

period

(the

recapitulation)

restates

only

the second

half of the

"expositional"

first

period,

that

is,

only

the second balanced

phrase

and

its

appendix

(mm.

166-88

corresponding

o

mm.

68-90).

But

what

happens

n between these

two

broad

periods

(mm. 91-166)

and after

them

(mm. 189-208) defies any explanation in terms

of

the

sonata-allegro

tradition.

For want of

bet-

ter

terms,

one

might

speak

in a

preliminary

fashion

of

a

complex two-part

transition

(mm.

91-137)

preparing

he central

episode(mm.

138-

66)

and

another,

simpler

one-part

transition

(mm.

189-208)

preparing

the coda.

Now it is

immediately

apparent

hat

the latter transition

(mm. 189-208) corresponds

o

(or

recapitulates)

the first partof the former transition (mm. 91-

106)

in its

punctuation

form

as

well

as its

har-

monic and thematic

content: the

four mea-

sures of modulation

ending

with

a hint of a half

cadence

(mm. 91-94)

are

recapitulated

in six

measures

(mm. 189-94),

and the twelve-mea-

sure

appendix prolonging

the cadential

domi-

nant

(mm. 95-106)

is

recapitulated

in

twelve

measures

(mm.

195-206)

and followed

by

a

two-

measure appendix that resolves the dominant

to the tonic

(mm. 207-08).1o

Moreover,

the

cen-

tral

episode

(mm. 138-66)

resembles

in

its

rela-

tive

harmonic

stability

and

especially

in

its

KAROL

BERGER

Chopin's

Ballade,

op.

23

tioned here.

As far as

I

know,

none of

the student

exemplars

of the Ballade that survive

with

the

composer's

autograph

annotations correctsthe

introductory tempo

indication or

the

left-handchord

n m. 7 to conform

with the

Breitkopf

nd

Hirtel readings.(See Kobylafiska,Rekopisy,I, 127; idem,

Werkverzeichnis,

p.

46;

Frederic

Chopin,

CEuvres

our

pi-

ano:

facsimil

de

l'exemplaire

de

Jane

W.

Stirling,

ed.

Jean-

JacquesEigeldinger

and

Jean-Michel

Nectoux

[Paris,

1982]).

Thus,

in

the

unlikely

case

that these

readings

tem

from the

composer

himself, they

would

represent

an

ultimately

re-

jected

momentary

hesitation

on his

part.

Finally,

an

early

autograph

of the first fifteen

or

sixteen measures

of the

Ballade,

known to exist

in

a

private

collection,

is also

marked

Largo Kobylafiska,

Werkverzeichnis,

Erginzungen:

Berichtigungen,"

Musikantiquariat

Hans

Schneider,

Bedeutende

Musikerautographen,

Catalog

No.

241

[Tutzing,

1980],p. 16).Insum,while completecertainty n this matter

is

unlikely

(unless

the

manuscript

mentioned

in

Breitkopf

and

Hirtel's

letter to

Barcifiska

comes

to

light),

it seems

most

plausible

to conclude

that the

readings

ransmitted

n

the German first edition are

not authentic

and

that the

authorized ext is best

represented

by

the

French irst

edition

read

n

conjunction

with the

autograph

nd

whatever

can be

learned rom the annotations

n

the

exemplars

hat

belonged

to the

composer

or his students.

Needless

to

say,

this

conclusion

in no

way

detracts

from the

interest that

the

Breitkopf

and

Hartel

readingsmay

hold

for

the

student of

the

performance

and

reception

history

of

the work outside

FranceandEngland.Heinrich Schenker'sargument n favor

of

the German

reading

of

m.

7

is as

telling

as

it is unconvinc-

ing.

See

Schenker,

Der

freie

Satz

(2nd

edn.

Vienna, 1956),p.

110 and

fig. 64,

ex.

2.

'oGiven

the

very

close

correspondence

of mm. 189-208

and

91-106,

no

analyst

that

I

am aware

of considers the

latter section

to be a

part

of the

exposition,

and

Chopin's

well-known practice of recapitulatingnormally only the

second

half of the

exposition,

it is

puzzling

that so

many

analysts

of

op. 23, including

most

recently

even

the

usu-

ally

admirablyperceptive

Jim

Samson, identify

a mirror

or

symmetrical

recapitulation

(with

the first theme

recapitu-

lated

after the second

one)

in

the

work.

Compare

Jim

Samson,

Chopin:

The Four Ballades

(Cambridge,

1992),

pp.

45-50.

The most

noteworthy analyses

of the Ballade

to

appear

after Samson's

book are

John

Daverio,

Nine-

teenth-Century

Music and

the German Romantic Ideol-

ogy

(New York,

1993),

pp.

39-41,

and Charles

Rosen,

The

Romantic

Generation

(Cambridge,

Mass., 1995), pp.

323-

28. Daverio talks of "an overridingpalindromic form" (p.

40). Rosen,

on the other

hand,

considers both returns

of

theme

A

as "a ritornello"

or "a refrain"

p.

327)

and avoids

any suggestion

of a

recapitulation.

49

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19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

punctuation form,

although

not

in

its thematic

content,

the

coda

(mm.

209-64):

both

consist of

three

short incises followed

by

a

very

large

one

(in the episode, three four-measureincises are

followed

by

a

seventeen-measure

one;

in the

coda,

two incises of four

measures each

are

elided

with one of nine

measures,

which is

elided in

turn with a

twenty-seven-measure

one,

followed

by

a fifteen-measure

appendix).

I

shall show that the

correspondences

between

the

episode

and

the

coda

go

further than

that.)

Thus

only

the second

part

of

the first transition

(mm. 106-37) seems to be left without a direct

recapitulation

or at least a

corresponding

sec-

tion in the last third of the

piece.

Since this

is,

however,

a

developed

restatement of the

sec-

ond balanced

phrase

of the main

period

(mm.

106-26

=

8

mm.

+

13

mm.,

corresponding

to

mm. 68-82

=

8

mm.

+

7

mm.),

this time

ending

with a half rather than full cadence

(m.

126),

with

the

final

cadential dominant

prolongedby

the following appendix(mm. 126-37), even this

music finds its

corresponding

counterpart,

if

not an

exact

restatement,

at the

beginning

of

the

recapitulation

(mm. 166-88).

Figure

1

summarizes the

punctuation

form

of the

Ballade.

(The

recapitulating

sections are

linked with the sections

they recapitulate by

continuous

vertical

lines;

sections

correspond-

ing

in some

other,

weaker

way

are

linked

by

interruptedlines; I andV mark sections ending

with a

full

or half

cadence,

respectively;

+I

and

+V

in

parentheses

mark

appendixes prolonging

the final tonic

or dominant of

the

preceding

cadence,

respectively;

1 indicates that the sec-

tion is

linked

with the

following

one,

e-that

it

is elided

with the

following

one;

Arabic numer-

als count

measures within

a

section.)

Several

points clearly emerge.

First,

the norm

underly-

ing Chopin's balancedphrases (that is, the an-

tecedent-consequent phrases

that

present

the

two main

themes)

seems to be

two

eight-mea-

sure

incises,

but the

norm

is

obeyed (estab-

lished)

in the first incise

only

to be

departed

from in the second.

In

the first

(unrecapitulated)

phrase (mm. 9-36),

the

generous

expansion

of

the second incise to

twenty

measures

may per-

haps

adumbrate the overall end-oriented

shape

of the work. Even if all parenthetical repetition

(mm.

24-25

repeat

mm.

22-23)

as

well as the

parenthetical expansion

of the

penultimate

cadential

dominant

(mm.

32-35-the

only

mea-

sures

that could

be

removed from

the incise

without a loss of

motivic

substance

or

gram-

matical integrity)were removed from the sec-

ond

incise,

a

sizable

consequent

of

fourteen

measures would still

remain. On

the

other

hand,

the

behaviorof

the

second

(recapitulated)

hrase

(mm.

68-82 and

166-80)

is

quite

different. Here

the

slightly

shorter

consequent

weakens the

sense of

closure and

necessitates a

continua-

tion.

(When

the

phrase

is

recapitulated/devel-

oped

in mm.

106-26,

the

consequent

is made

longerto make room fora modulation.)Whereas

the

balanced

phrases

are

conceived

in

terms of

the

eight-plus-eight

norm,

the

episode

and the

coda

suggest

another

underlying

norm,

an

addi-

tive

construction

of

four

four-measure

incises

(I

shall offer

arguments

for this

reading

later),

with the norm

observed

only

in

the first two or

three

incises,

and with an

enormous

expansion

of the

last incise.

(Together

with the conse-

quent of the first phrase, these are by far the

largest

incises of the entire

work.)

Once

again,

the end-oriented

shape

of

the

whole is reflected

in

the structure of

these two sections.

This

contributes to the sense of a discourse that

constantly

yearns

for

(and

finally

attains)

an

emphatic

conclusion.

Second,

the

handling

of the cadences shows

an

abiding

concern for

continuity.

To be

sure,

the discourse is marked by a number of ca-

dence

articulations,

and all are

additionally

strengthened by

one or more

appendixes

pro-

longing

their final

chords.

Nevertheless,

these

cadences

and

appendixes

(save,

of

course,

the

last

one)

are either linked or elided

with the

following

music.

This ensures that the sense

of

articulation is never

very

strong-never

as

em-

phatic,

for

instance,

as the one

commonly

en-

countered at the end of the first period(exposi-

tion)

of the Classical

sonata-allegro.

In

addition to

such obvious devices

as

the

link and the

elision,

Chopin

also

uses

subtler

ways

of

smoothing

over

the

joints

between

suc-

cessive sections. The

introduction,

for

example,

is left without a cadence.

The cadence

that

should have

closed it comes at the

first down-

beat of

the

following phrase (m.

9),

but because

this downbeat is preceded by an upbeat, this is

not

a normal case of elision

(in

which the

last

melodic downbeat

of a

preceding

section

and

50

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Measure:

1 9

36

45 49

56 68

83

91 95

106

126

13

81 81+

20e

(5e

+

51)

(21[21])

(8e)

121

81+ 71

(41[41])

41

(12e)

81+13e

(121)

41,

Punctuation:

Ie

(+

11)

(+II)

(+

Ie)

II

(+I )

VI

(+Ve)

Ve

(+V1)

Section:

Intro.

First

period:

Transition:

Ep

phrase

1

Transition

phrase

2

part

1

part

2

Measure:

166

181

189

195

207

20

81+ 71

(41

41])

61

(121)

(21)

41,

Punctuation:

II

(+I )

VI

(+Vl)

(+I )

Ie

Section:

Last

period:

Transition:

Co

phrase

2

part

1

Figure

1:

The

Punctuation

form

of

Chopin's

Ballade,

op.

23.

U,

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19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

the

first of

the

following

one

coincide).

Instead,

the

melody

of the

introduction

is

interrupted

in

midstream

rather

than

concluded,

and it

is

only covertly

continued

through

the

upbeat

and

first

downbeat of

the

following

phrase.

One

might

call this

a

superelision.11

Similar

cases

of

superelision

occur at the

ends of the

only

other

two

sections that lack

cadences,

the

transition

between

the

first and

second

phrase

of the

first

period

(mm.

56-67)

and the

episode

(mm.

138-

66), parallel spots

to

the extent

that

both

pre-

cede the

same

material,

the second

phrase

of

the period. In the formercase, the cadence oc-

curs in

m.

69,

that

is,

one

measure

after the

new

phrase

had

begun

(on

the

last

quarter

of

m.

67).

Like the

introduction,

the

transition

is

in-

terrupted

in

midstream and

only covertly

con-

tinued as the new

phrase begins

with the

same

dyad

the transition

died out on.

And

similarly,

the

cadence that should

have endedthe

episode

is

delayed

until m.

167,

that

is,

one

measure

after the beginning of the next phrase. The

melodic link

(the

dyad)

between the

episode

and the

following

phrase

is

lacking

this

time,

but the harmonic bond

between them

is much

stronger,

since the cadence

begins

within

the

episode

and is

completed

within

the

phrase:

the cadential

dominant is reached

in

m. 158

in

the form of the six-four

(EL) hord,

which is

prolonged

through

the

downbeat of m. 162 and

resolvedby way of the chromaticpassingchords

in

mm.

162-65 to

the

V5(BM)

hord at the

begin-

ning

of the new

phrase

in

m.

166.

Here,

as

throughout

the

Ballade,

Chopin's

evident

goal

is to

punctuate

without

stopping,

to

suggest points

of articulation

without

im-

peding

the drive toward the final

destination.

The

composer's

concern

with

such issues

may

be

graphically

illustrated

by

his subtle revision

of the phrasingin mm. 54-5 7. In the autograph,

mm.

54-55

(i.e.,

the last two measures of the

final

appendix

to the first

phrase)

are

placed

under one

slur,

and

mm.

56-57,

the first two

measures of the

following

transition,

are

placed

under another.

In this

way,

Chopin

originally

marked a

point

of

articulation

between the

ap-

pendix

and the

transition

very

clearly.

In

the

French

first edition, however, he decided to

cover all four

measures

with a

single

slur,

thus

increasing

the

sense of

continuity

between the

two sections.

Third,

full

cadences are

used

to close the

relatively

stable

sections

that

state or

restate

their material

(the

two

balanced

phrases

of both

periods

and the

coda),

and

half

cadences close

the

relatively

unstable

sections,

with the

func-

tion of preparing he appearanceof the follow-

ing,

more stable sections

(the

two

phrases

of

transition).

Here

Chopin

strictly

observes

the

Classical

usage.

The

central

episode, however,

is

anomalous,

since-as

observed

earlier-it

promises

to

close with

a full

cadence but

post-

pones

its

completion

until

after the be

inning

of the next

phrase

and ends on

the

V3

chord.

This

imaginative

ending

makes it at

once a

section of relative stability and transition.

Fourth,

the

relative

strength

of a cadence

depends

primarily

on the

length

of its

domi-

nant;

observe

where the

strongest

cadences oc-

cur and

how

they

are handled.

The

dominants

of

longest

duration

are

placed

as

follows:

mm.

94-106

(thirteen

measures),

the

appendix

of the

first

part

of the

transition

between the

first

period

and

the central

episode

through

the

first

measure of the following phrase (anothercase

of the

superelision

that

always precedes

the

appearance

of this

material);

mm.

126-37

(twelve

measures),

the

appendix

of the

second

part

of the

first

transition;

mm. 158-66

(nine

measures),

the

already

discussed

cadence

supereliding

the

episode

with

the last

period;

mm.

194-207

(fourteen

measures),

the two

ap-

pendixes

of the second

transition;

and

mm.

238-49 (twelve measures),the final cadence of

the work. It is clear

that once the main the-

matic material has been

presented,

that

is,

im-

mediately

after the first

period

(exposition),

the

discourse consists

essentially

of one

strong

cadential

statement after another.

Although

there are no

seriously prolonged

dominants

through

the end of the first

period (the only

dominant-prolongation, lasting

four-and-a-half

measures, occurs at the cadence of the first

phrase,

mm.

312-35), every phrase

after

the

first

period,

with the sole

exception

of

the

"The articulation between the introduction and the first

period

is

further

weakened

by

a subtle textural

transition,

as the monophony of the paralleloctaves in mm. 1-5 gives

way

to

the

first hint of the

homophonic, melody-with-

accompaniment,

texture in mm.

6-7,

thus

preparing

he

homophonic

texture

of the first

period.

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Measure:

1

9

36 45 49 56 68 83 91 95 106 126

138

Theme/motif:

a

A al a2 a3 x B b "b" "A" "B"

y

C

I

-->

(V)

wt"Vb"-l-

(V)

I

Key: (V) i -- "VI"/VI VI

Punctuation:

Ie (+ Il)

(+I1)

(+

Ie)

Il

(+II)

V1

(+Ve)

Ve

(+Vl)

Section:

Intro.First

period:

Transition:

Episode

phrase

1

Transition

phrase part

1

part

2

Measure:

166 181 189 195

207

209

250

Theme/motif:

B b "b" "A"

z

D

"A"

Key:

--

(V)

i

Punctuation:

II

(+II)

V1

(+Vl)

(+II)

Ie

(+I)

Section:

Last

period:

Transition:

Coda

phrase2 part1

KAROL

BERGER

Chopin's

Ballade,

op.

23

Figure

2: The

Harmonic

and thematic

plans

of

Chopin's

Ballade,

op.

23.

recapitulatory

phrase

of

the

last

period,

ends

with

a

seriously prolonged

dominant.

But it is

noteworthy that only one, the final, of these

strong

cadences

is suited

to conclude

the dis-

course,

since

only

it is

simultaneously

a

full

cadence and has

a final tonic

prolonged by

an

appendix.

The

impression,

again,

is of

a

dis-

course

in

search of

a

suitably strong

conclu-

sion,

reached

only

after a

number of less suc-

cessful

rehearsals.

II

In

music

analysis

the

"what"

questions,

al-

though indispensable,

are

generally

less

inter-

esting

than the

"why" questions.

It

is

clear at

this

point

what

the

punctuation

form

of the

Ballade

is,

but not

why

the work has this form

rather than another.

To make

the

first

step

in

this

direction,

I shall turn to the harmonic

and

melodic matter

of the musical discourse.

Fig-

ure 2 summarizes

the harmonic and thematic

plans

of the

work,

mapping

them

against

the

already

identified formal

units.

Upper-and

lowercase Roman

numerals stand for

major

and

minor

keys

respectively;

an arrow marks a

modulation;

V in

parentheses

signifies

the domi-

nant

preparation

of the

following

key;

quota-

tion marks around

a

Roman

numeral indicate

that the

key

in

question

has

not been

adequately

prepared,

that we are

"on,"

but not "in"

it,

as

Tovey

would

say;

a

key

is crossed-out

when it

is

prepared

but withheld.

Capital

letters iden-

tify major

thematic

ideas,

lowercase

letters,

with or without Arabic

numerals,

identify

mi-

nor motivic ideas that serve to individualize

less

important

formal

units,

such as

appen-

dixes;

quotation

marks

around a

letter indicate

that the theme

in

question

is

being

developed,

rather

than

stated.

Through

the end of the first

period,

the har-

monic

plan

of the Ballade more or less meets

sonata-allegro expectations,

at

least

to

the ex-

tent that

it

establishes the

main

key,

modu-

lates,

and establishes the second

key.

After-

ward,

it

goes

its

own

way.

To be

sure,

the

further modulation one

might

expect

does oc-

cur,

but,

instead of

leading

toward new har-

monic

regions,

it

circles back to the second

key;

and the retransition and

reestablishing

of

the main

key

occur

much later

than

they

would

in a

sonata-allegro.

Thus,

the basic

plan

con-

sists of two

tonic

areas

of

roughly

similar

di-

mensions at the

beginning

and end

framing

a

much

longer

(more

than twice

as

long

as either

of

the two tonic

regions)

central submediant

area,

the latter

in

three

parts:

a

tonally

stable

one

corresponding

to the

second

phrase

of

the

first

period;

an unstable one

corresponding

to

the

transition;

and another stable one corre-

sponding

to

the

episode

and last

period.

In ef-

fect,

two tonal

recapitulations

can be

identi-

fied,

one

occurring

before and one after the

thematic

recapitulation:

the return of the

submediant

in m.

138

and

of the tonic

in

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19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

m.

209.

It

is

worth

observing

that

there

is

rela-

tively

little tonal

instability

in

the

piece;

the

principal

areas

of

instability

are

confined

to

the

transitions.

Otherwise,

the

discourse is

remark-

ably

reluctant to

modulate

and

proceeds

in

broad,

stable tonal areas of either the tonic or

submediant. Measured

against

the

sonata-alle-

gro expectations

raised

at the

beginning,

the

most

striking

feature

of

this tonal

plan

is

the

postponement

of the

main

key's

return until

the

coda,

that

is,

until well after the thematic

recapitulation

had been

completed.

This shift

of the tonic's return from the point where it

would

coincide with the

beginning

of

the

the-

matic

recapitulation

to the

beginning

of

the

coda,

lending

so

much more dramato the

point

of

return,

confirms

and reinforces our sense of

the

work's

general shape

as imbalanced

and

end-oriented.

A

few harmonic details

deserve additional

comment.

First,

the dominant

preparation,

he

essential harmonic content of the introduction,

emerges

only

gradually

out of the

opening

II6

(Neapolitan

sixth)

chord;

ts first elements show

up only

in

m.

3,

which

emphasizes

c3

and

f#2,

the

two

indispensable

pitches

of the

V7

chord,

itself

fully

spelled

out

only

after the introduc-

tion

is

over

in

m.

8. This

beginning

is

harmoni-

cally

as

strikingly

reluctant as

the

ending

will

be

strikingly

emphatic.'2

The

specific harmony

Al, which dominates the first three measures

and out

of which

the dominant

emerges,

may

hint at the

importance

the

pitch

Ab

will

have

in

the

tonal

plan

of

the

whole,

as

it is

the

only

step

of the submediant

key

missing

from the

tonic G minor.

Second, Chopin's already

noted reluctance

to modulate is

nowhere

more

evident than

in

the

transition

between

the two

key

areas of

the

first period.He not only follows the first phrase

with three

appendixes,

thus

postponing

the

moment

when

the

tonic

key

will have to

be

abandoned,

but

also continues

to hesitate

even

after the

transition

gets underway

in m.

56.

Strictly

speaking,

there is no

real modulation

here,

in

the sense of an

adequate

preparation

of

the

following key-only

a

chromatic sliding

down of the

bass from

GG

in

m.

56

through

GGl

in

m.

62

to FF in m.

63,

all

of

which

is

executed with

such vacillation that until the

downbeat of

m. 63

the

music could

still

slide

back

easily

to

g

minor. As a

result,

when the

new

key,

El

major,

appears

n

m.

68,

it

is

quite

unprepared,

and even the cadence in m.

69

is

not sufficient to

stabilize

it. In

fact,

the tonal

instability of the second phrase is initially so

great

that it

is

not even clear whether

El or Bl

will be

its

key:

the

hint

of

a

cadence

in

El

at

the

end of the first incise

in

m. 69 is

immediately

followed

by

another hint of a cadence

in Bl at

the

end of

the

second incise

in

m.

71.

For

a

strong

cadential confirmation of

the

second

key,

one must wait until the end of the

second

phrase

in

m. 82. Like the

whole

Ballade,

the second

phrasemoves from an ambiguous, hesitant be-

ginning

to

a

clearly

defined

goal

at the

end.

The

remarkable reluctance

with which the

main

key

is

abandoned and

the second one

reached

contrasts

strongly

with the

normal Classical

practice

of an

energetic

drive toward

the sec-

ond

key (although

the

concealing

of

a

hint

of

what this second

key might

be

in

the

first

mea-

sures of the work does

have Classical

prece-

dents).The relative lack of a forwardharmonic

drive

is

compensated

for,

at least

in

part,by

the

seamlessness

of the transition

from the

main

to the second

key

area

and,

again,

this

is

in

contrast

with the normal

Classical

practice

of

placing

a

strong

point

of

'articulationbefore

the

second

phrase.

Needless to

say,

Chopin's

mas-

tery

of the

mechanics

of modulation

cannot

be

in

doubt.

Rather,

his aesthetic

goals

are

differ-

ent from those of his Classical masters. At

every step

one discovers

that

he aims not

for

the

Classical

balance

and

symmetry

of

clearly

articulated

formal

units

but for

an overall

shape

that

projects,

from

an

unassuming

and

reluc-

tant

beginning,

a sense

of a

relatively

seamless,

gradual

accumulation

of

energy

and

accelera-

tion toward

the

inevitable,

frantic

conclusion.

Third,

the

longest

section

of tonal

instabil-

ity in the Ballade, the transition between the

first

period

and

the

episode, represents

a move-

ment within

the second

key,

rather

than

away

'2Moreover, t

is

reluctant

not

only

harmonically

but

also

texturally,

with the

gradual

emergence

of

homophony

out

of

monophony,

and

rhythmically,

with measured

rhyth-

mic differentiationof values emergingonly graduallyout

of the

initial

lack

of

metric

definition

and

rhythmic

differ-

entiation;

on

every

level,

mm. 6-7 furnish

the crucial me-

diating

step.

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from it.

The new

key,

BN

enharmonically

no-

tated

as A

(I

shall offer

my

reasons for this

interpretation

later),

is

adequately

prepared

by

the dominant-function six-four appendix in

mm.

94-105

(strictly speaking,

its

parallel

mi-

nor,

b

,

is

prepared),

but

the

confirming

BN-

major

cadence is

reached

only

in m.

107,

after

the

beginning

of the next

phrase

on V7 of

the

new

key

in m. 106

(the already

discussed

superelision);

because toward the end

(from

m.

118

on)

the new

phrase

initiates

a

move

back

to E6and ends

with a

half

cadence

in that

key

(or rather its parallel minor), the key of B? is

never confirmed

by

a

full cadence

coinciding

with either the

beginning

or end

of the

phrase.

The

daring

diminished-fifth

relationship

be-

tween

E6

and

B?

is

certainly

noteworthy,

defin-

ing

as

it does the

high point

of

harmonic insta-

bility

in the work.

Chopin,

who

loved to

flatten

the fifth

degree

of

a

chord,

here transfers

his

predilection

from the

level of chordal structure

to that of key structure.

The thematic

plan

of

the

Ballade,

like the

harmonic

one,

follows

the

sonata-allegro

model

through

the end of the first

period,

to

the

ex-

tent at least

that

it

presents

two

thematic

ideas

in

two different

keys,

and

alludes

to them once

more in the last

period,

where the second

theme

is

recapitulated,

although, against

all sonata

precedents,

in the second

rather than the main

key. This lack of correlation between the the-

matic and harmonic

recapitulations

and the

introduction of two new thematic

ideas,

C

and

D

after

the

first-period

exposition,

constitute

the two

most

striking

features

of the

thematic

plan

as

measured

against

the

sonata-allegro

ex-

pectations

raised at the

beginning.

The

two

features

are related to this extent:

that the sec-

ond theme is

recapitulated

in

the

subsidiary

rather than main key necessitates the continu-

ation of

the discourse

beyond

the end of the

last

period

so

that the main

key

can

return in

the coda. The introduction of

a new theme at

the

point

where the tonic

key

returns

gives

this

point

additional

emphasis

and

importance

and

confirms our fundamental

reading

of the over-

all

shape

of the work

as

focused on the final

goal.

Like theme

D,

theme C itself articulates

and

emphasizes

the arrival of the tonal reca-

pitulation:

it has been noted

above that the

Ballade

contains two such

points

of tonal re-

turn,

first

to the submediant

in

m. 138 and

second

to the tonic in m.

209.

This

and

because

C

and

D

are

the two new themes introduced

after the first-period exposition further

strengthen

the

correspondence

between

the

epi-

sode

and the

coda

already

noted on

the

basis of

punctuation

alone. In

fact,.the

correspondence

goes

even

deeper:

both themes have a similar

motivic

construction.

The four

incises of both

themes,

C and

D

(see fig. 1),

are filled with

motivic

content

that could be labeled mmnn'-

that

is,

in

terms

of the motivic

content,

the

second incise repeatsthe first, while the fourth

wants to

repeat

the

third, but,

unable to con-

tain

its

energy,

bursts its

limits

as

if

losing

self-

control

in

a

giddy

rush

to

the cadence.

Thus

the

episode

takes on the

appearance

of a re-

hearsal

for the

coda,

and the whole

sequence

of

events

from m.

166

on can be read as

a

rectifi-

cation of the

sequence

of events

from m.

68 to

m.

165,

as

if

the search

for a

proper

conclu-

sion-the essential content of the work-did

not

get

it

right

the first

time

and

had

to

be

repeated

and corrected on second

try.'3

KAROL

BERGER

Chopin's

Ballade,

op.

23

'3Needless

to

say,

the

similarity

of the overall thematic

plan,

a-b-b1

(mm. 1-67, 68-165,

and 166-264

respectively),

to the form

of the

medieval ballade

is

fortuitous.

In

choos-

ing

a

name for the

genre

his

op.

23

was

to

inaugurate,

Chopin

was

certainly inspired by

the tremendous Euro-

pean vogue for the poetic ballad among the Romantics,

and

in

particular

by

that

virtual

manifesto

of

Polish liter-

ary

Romanticism,

Adam Mickiewicz's collection of

Ballady

i

Romanse

(Ballads

and

Romances)

of

1822. There

is no

good

reason

to distrust Robert Schumann's

testimony

in

this matter:

"He

spoke

then

[when

he met Schumann in

Leipzig

on 12-13

September

1836]

also of the

fact that

he

got inspiration

for his ballads from some

poems

of

Mickiewicz"

(Er

sprach

damals auch

davon,

daf

er zu

seinen

Balladen

durch

einige

Gedichte

von

Mickiewicz

angeregt

worden

sei.) (Schumann,

Gesammelte

Schriften

fiber

Musik und

Musiker,

vol.

II,

ed. M.

Kreisig

[5th

edn.

Leipzig, 1914],p. 32).See, however,ChristianeEngelbrecht,

"Zur

Vorgeschichte

der

Chopinschen

Klavierballade,"

n

The Book

of

the

First International

Musicological

Con-

gress

Devoted to the Works

of

Frederick

Chopin,

Warszawa

16th-22nd

February

1960,

ed.

Zofia

Lissa

(Warsaw,

1963),

pp.

519-21;

Giinther

Wagner,

Die

Klavierballade um

die

Mitte

des

19.

Jahrhunderts,

Berliner Musikwissen-

schaftlicheArbeiten9

(Munich-Salzburg,

976),

pp.

42-48;

and Anselm

Gerhard,

"Ballade und Drama:

Frederic

Chopins

Ballade

opus

38

und

die franzbsische

Oper

um

1830,"

Archiv

ffir

Musikwissenschaft

48

(1991),

110-25.

See also

James

Parakilas,

Ballads Without Words:

Chopin

and the Tradition of the Instrumental Ballade(Portland,

Or.,

1992),

pp.

26-27. For the date

of

Chopin's

meeting

with

Schumann,

see Schumann's

letter to Heinrich Dorn

in

Riga,

written

in

Leipzig

on

14

September

1836: "Eben

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19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

I

have

commented

above on

the

relative lack

of tonal

instability

in

the

Ballade.

Similar

and

closely

related to

it

is the

scarcity

of

genuine

thematic development in the piece-and the

little

there is is

confined to

the two

transitions,

just

as the

areas of

harmonic

instability

were.

Even

many

of

the

passages signaled

by quota-

tion

marks in

fig.

2

as

developmental

do

not

quite

live

up

to the Classical

image

of

thematic

working:

mm.

91-94

and

189-94

merely

con-

tinue to use

the motif of

the

preceding appen-

dix

to shift the

key up by thirds;

in

mm. 106-

26 the second theme is not so much developed

as

restated with a

modulatory

change

at

the

end

(thus,

one

might

speak

of a

development

only

after m.

117)

and with

its

charactertrans-

formed from the

original

sotto voce

pianissimo

to the

chordally

reinforced

ortissimo;

and

mm.

250-64 do not so much

develop

as

make

refer-

ences to

previously

heard ideas. Even

mm.

95-

106

and

195-206,

which

are as close to

genuine

development as the Ballade ever gets, begin

with restatements of

the main

theme and

only

later

lapse

into a brief and

rudimentary

the-

matic

working.

But in these two

passages,

at

least,

one

cannot

really

speak

of

a

thematic

restatement

(as

in

mm.

106-26),

since

too little

of the

original

theme is

repeated

and

both the

expressive

character and the

function of the

material

is

transformed,

reversed

in

fact,

from

a thematic statement to a preparationfor an

upcoming

one

(mainly through

harmonic

means,

as the whole

passage

is based on the

dominant-function six-four

pedal).

Forthe

most

part,

then,

the work

seems

to

state and

restate

its ideas rather than

developing

them. The rela-

tive lack of

development

of the

second theme

in

mm. 106-26 and that this is the

only

subject

to be

recapitulated give

theme

B

the character

of a

recurring

refrain.

(Goethe

observed in

1821

that "the

refrain,

the

recurrence

of

the

same

closing sound,

gives

this

genre

of

poetry [the

ballad] its decisively lyrical character."'4)To

claim

that

Chopin

consciously

invokes the

model of the

poetic

strophic

ballad with

refrain

would

probably

be an

over-interpretation.Still,

the idea should not

be

hastily rejected:

it

is

plausible

to

claim,

after

all,

that

Chopin's

next

Ballade would

explore

this

very

model.15

III

This relative lack of tonal instability and

especially

of thematic

development

might

eas-

ily give

a

superficial

observer

the

impression

of

a

work

more

"lyrical"

than

"narrative" n

its

basic

character,

n

which the

temporal

ordering

of the events and

the

logic

governing

their suc-

cession matter

far less than

the

dimensions of

the work would lead one

to

expect.

But

nothing

could be

further from

the

truth. Motivic devel-

opment is all-pervasive in the Ballade. It ex-

tends from the first to

the last

measure

and

does not

have to

be confined to the

ghetto

of

the

(nonexistent)

development

section. But

this

development

is

conceived

in

terms different

from those of

the Classical

masters,

in

terms

more akin to

the Brahmsian

developing

varia-

tion than

to Beethovenian

thematic

working.

To

be

more

precise:

neither

"development"

nor

"variation"accuratelydescribesChopin'stech-

nique.

These terms

imply

a

distinction between

a model

(motif, theme)

and

its elaboration

(de-

velopment,

variation),

between

something origi-

nal and

primary,

and

something

derived

and

secondary.

But

distinctions of this

sort

are

ir-

relevant to the

technique

found

in

Chopin's

Ballade. It

is

evident that

its thematic

and

motivic statements are

interrelated,

but

they

are not derived from one another: they are all

equally

original,

or-what

amounts to

the

same

thing-equally

derived from a

single,

extremely

concentrated

motivic source.

ls ich

vorgestern

Ihren

Brief erhalte und antworten

will,

wer tritt herein?

Chopin

Das war

grosse

Freude.

Einen

schinen

Tag

lebten

wir,

den

ich

gestern

noch nachfeierte"

(quoted

from

Chopin,

Korespondencia,

, 420).

See also the

12

September

1836

entry

in Schumann's

personal diary,

quoted

in

Jean-Jacques

Eigeldinger, Chopin:

Pianist and

Teacher as Seen

by

His

Pupils,

ed.

Roy Howat,

trans.

Naomi

Shohet

with

Krysia

Osostowicz and

Roy

Howat

(Cambridge,1986), p. 268. Concerning Chopin's visit to

Leipzig

and

meeting

with

Schumann,

see in

particular

Gastone

Belotti,

F.

Chopin

l'uomo,

3 vols.

(Milan

and

Rome, 1974), pp.

571-74.

14"Der

Refrain,

das Wiederkehren ebendesselben

Schluifklanges,

gibt

dieser Dichtart den

entschiedenen

lyrischen Charakter" (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,

"Ballade,Betrachtung

und

Auslegung,"

Werke,

Hamburger

Ausgabe,

vol.

I

[Munich, 1981], p.

400).

'SSee

Gerhard,

"Balladeund

Drama,"

pp.

110-25.

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The narrative

continuity

in the Ballade

is

established

mainly by

a

tight

network

of motivic

interrelationships.

Some

of

these

lie at the

sur-

face and are easily noticed. The ascending ar-

peggio

that

opens

the main

motif of the

first

theme,

A

(m.

8),

echoes the

ascending arpeggio

that

opened

the

introduction,

a

(mm. 1-3).

The

motif of the

first

appendix

that

follows the

main

theme,

al, againopens

with an

ascending

arpeggio

(m. 36).

In all three

cases,

the ascent

is

followed

by

a

stepwise

descent.

The same

con-

tour of

an

at least

partly arpeggiated

ascent

followed by a stepwise descent reappearsn the

motif of the

appendix

to the second

theme,

b

(mm.

82-83).

Thus,

when the contour

reap-

pears

in

the

appendix

of the coda

(mm.

253-54

and

257-58),

a backward

glance

is

cast

simulta-

neously

at theme A and at motives

a,

al,

and

b-that

is,

a final reference

is made

to

the most

overt motivic link of

the

whole discourse. Since

appendixes

a2

and a3 have no

genuinely

me-

lodic content, consisting instead of an increas-

ingly

nervous and

agitated

sempre pih)

mosso

figuration

that

gives

way

to

the

(again )

arpeggiated

chords of the

transition,

and

given

that

x,

y,

and

z

are

melodically

even more

neu-

tral,

of the

melodically significant

ideas of the

Ballade,

only

themes

B, C,

and D are free of

references to

the

just-identified

motivic con-

tour.

Another,

equally

overt,

motivic

interrela-

tionship links theme C with the first appendix

of the main

theme,

al:

compare

the left-hand

motif

in

m. 138 with the

one in

m.

36.

A

much

less obvious

link,

but

still close to

the

surface,

relates the

theme

to

the

introduction:

compare

the

right

hand

in

m.

138 with m.

3.

Thus,

on

the surface

at

least,

only

themes

B and D

ap-

pear

to be without

significant

links to other

ideas

in the

piece.

Although these overt motivic links, how-

ever,

do

play

a role

in

establishing

connections

between

individual

ideas of the

discourse,

I

believe the motivic

interrelationships

and deri-

vations

one

discovers

beneath the

surface are

far more

significant.

The narrative

continuity

in the Ballade

mainly

relies on those. The meta-

phor

of what is on or

beneath

the

surface stands

here for the

distinction between an overt me-

lodic shape and its underlying structure that

can be revealed when this overt

shape

is

re-

duced to its

most fundamental

pitches. By

be-

ginning

to reduce the individual melodic

phases

of the

Ballade

in

this

way,

one

discovers a

narrative thread

of

astonishing logic

running

through the whole discourse, astonishing cer-

tainly

to this writer

and,

judging by

the

pub-

lished

literature,

probably

also to other

Chopin

critics.

m. 1 3 4 5

6 7 8

9

-

6

in

g

Example

1:

Chopin,

Ballade,

op.

23,

mm.

1-9,

reduction.

A reduction f the

introduction

ex. 1)

revealsthat

its

underlying

melodicmotif s

formed

y

the

c2

and

bL1

mm. 6-7),

with the

structural

2

prepared

rom

the

beginning

y

the

initial

opening-up

f

the

tonal

space

from c

(or

even

C)

to

c3

(mm. 1-3)

and the

following tepwise

descent o

c2

(mm.3-6),

and

with

the furtherdescent down to the tonic

prime,

gl,

completed,

s

already

een,

only

at the

beginning

f

the

following

phrase

(mm.

8-9).

The

motif

is

the

Classicalmusicalemblemof a

sigh,

and

t

encapsu-

lates the

expressive

world of the

following

dis-

course.16 middle-voice

ounterpoint

n

mm.

7-8

reproduces

he

motifa sixth loweras

ebl-dl.17

truc-

turally,

he most

striking

eature f the

introduction

is

its

emphasis

n C as the melodic

beginning,

trik-

ing because he fourthscaledegree 4),not beinga

member

of

the tonic

triad,

s an

unexpected

hoice

forthe

beginning

f

the

melody

rom he

standpoint

of

Classical onal

practice.

t

is

surely

worth

noting

that on the

surface

mm.

6-7)

the accented

melodic

beginning,

2

(4),

s

directly

related o

gl (1)

before

resolving

o

bbl

in

a

gesture

that

echoes

the

first

descent rom

c3

to

bb2

ia

g2

in m.

3:

the

introduc-

tion

encapsulates

what

matters

n a

most

economi-

cal

fashion.Boththe

sigh

motif and

ts

specific

ni-

KAROL

BERGER

Chopin's

Ballade,

op.

23

16In

rederickNiecks's

words,

op.

23 is "full

of

sighs,

sobs,

groans,

and

passionate

ebullitions"

(Frederick

Chopin

as a

Man and a

Musician,

vol.

II

[London,

1888;

rpt. Neptune

City, N.J.,

n.d.],

p. 268).

More

recently, Anatoly

Leikin

claims that the

sigh gesture

in

op.

23

evokes the seven-

teenth-century

operatic genre

of the

lamento.

Compare

Anatoly

Leikin,

The

Dissolution

of

Sonata Structure

in

Romantic Piano Music

(1820-1850) (Ph.D. diss.,

Univer-

sity of California,LosAngeles, 1986),p. 242.

'7Chopin

s as

unconcerned with

the

hidden

parallel

fifths

between the

top

and the middle

voices

in

mm. 7-8

as he

is

with the overt ones

in

mm.

6-7;

see n.

9 above.

57

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19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

m.

8 9 10 11 12

13

14

15

16

17

18 19

20

21

23 26

28 30 31

36

in

Ig

in

g

Example

2:

Ballade,

mm.

9-36,

reduction.

m.

36

37 38 40

41

42

44

in

g

Example

3:

Ballade,

mm.

36-44,

reduction.

tial

pitch

will

have

profound repercussions

in

what

follows.18

A reduction of theme A

(ex.2)

reveals

the

hidden

polyphonic

nature

of

its

melody.

The main

struc-

tural

melody (markedby

ascending

stems

in

ex.

2)

is

constructed

mostly

of the

dyadic sigh

motif

encoun-

tered in the

introduction

(mostly,

because

on

two

occasions

the

motif's direction

is

inverted to

ascend

and at the end the dyadsare abandoned n favorof a

longer

linear

descent).

The antecedent

(mm.

9-16)

as

a whole can be reduced to a

single sigh,

5-4,

but the

consequent

(mm.

17-36) goes

back to

5

and

com-

pletes

the

stepwise

descent

all the

way

to 1. This

melody

is

accompanied by

a

counterpoint (descend-

ing

stems

in

the

example) composed wholly

of

thirds

descending by

step.

It is most

striking

that the theme

is constructed of

the same motif

governing

the in-

troduction.

(Note, by

the

way,

how the

sigh

motif

reappears

twice on the surface in the left-hand ac-

companiment

at

the

cadence,

m.

35.)

The

fourth

scale

degreegives way

to the

fifth

one as

the

opening

melodic

tone,

but does not

disappear

rom view

com-

pletely, interrupting

the

structural melodic descent

at

the

end

of

the antecedent. It

reappears

lso,

on

par

with

the

fifth

degree,

as a

significant

surface

detail,

when

in

mm. 21-23

(and

again

in

mm.

24-25)

the

g2-gl

octave is divided

by

d2

and

c2.

Even more

on

the surface (so much that it does not appearat all in

my reduction),

but

certainly

no less

significant,

is

the

insistent

droning

of the

accented

cls (right

hand,

mm.

8,

10, 12, 16,

18,

and

20).

A new

feature

(with

consequences

in

the

future)

is

provided

by

the

stepwise

descending

thirds

of

the

counterpoint.

Every significant

interpreter

of

Chopin's

music

knows to what

extent the

composer's

surface

ho-

mophony

covers

multivoiced

textures.

If

the

melody

of theme A

was characterized

by

hidden

polyphony,

that of

the

following

appendix,

al,

might

be dubbed

heterophonic:the right-handmelody is reduced to

its

structurally

most

important

pitches,

rhythmi-

cally

displaced,

and

doubled

an

octave lower

in

the

left

hand.

A

reduction of the

melody (ex.

3)

shows

that it

is,

again,

constructed

wholly

of the descend-

ing-dyad sigh

motif.

A

new

feature,

and

worth re-

membering

for its future

repercussions,

is that both

halves of the

appendix

begin

on

f2,

again

a

striking

choice for

a

starting

point

of

a

melody,

since

7

is not

a member of

the tonic triad.

It has

already

been mentioned that in the follow-

ing

two

appendixes,

a2 and

a3,

true

melody

has

given way

to an

increasingly

nervous

figuration.

But

this too

can

be

reduced to its

structurally

most

im-

portant pitches.

The

two

two-measure

incises

of a2

(see

fig.

1)

differ

(apart

rom

being

sounded

in differ-

ent

octaves)

only

in

that the

first

ends with

the

fifth

scale

degree

in

the

bass,

whereas

the

second ends

with

the

conclusive

prime,

which

ensures

that the

repetition is not heard as redundant.Melodically,

both incises consist

essentially

of two tetrachords

descending

by

step,

one

from

C

to

G and the other

from

F

to

C

(see

the

reduction

of mm. 44-45

in

ex.

4),

which condenses and summarizes the

pitch

rela-

tionships

observed

before,

namely,

the

emphasis

on

4

in

its

relation to

1

(as

earlier

in the

introduction,

mm. 3 and

6-7)

and the

emphasis

on

7,

which is now

revealed

as

related

to

4

(i.e.,

as the

4

of

4,

a sort

of 4 to

the second

power).

The following appendix, a3, begins with the figure

reduced in ex.

5,

repeating

it

four

times,

in

different

octaves,

in mm.

48-52. Then

it

continues as

in

ex.

6,

repeating

the

pattern

initiated

in

m.

54

four

times

in

"8In

his well-known

analysis

of the

Ballade,

Hugo

Leichtentritt also derives

the whole work from

a

single

motivic

source,

but

he

locates

this source

in m.

5. See

Leichtentritt,Analyse

von

Chopin'schen

Klavierwerke,

ol.

II

(Berlin,

1921),

p.

2.

Leichtentritt's claim

is

disputed

in

Wagner, Die Klavierballadeum die Mitte des 19. Jahr-

hunderts, pp.

13-16.

On the

other

hand,

Leikin

correctly

identifies the

sigh

motif as

being

of

pivotal importance

n

op.

23. See

Leikin,

The Dissolution

of

Sonata

Structure,

p.

250.

58

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m.

44

45

in

g

Example

4:

Ballade,

mm.

44-45,

reduction.

m. 48

49

in g

Example

5:

Ballade,

mm.

48-49,

reduction.

mm.

54-55,

so

that

by

the end of the

appendix

the

melodic

cl remains

unresolved,

its

importance

un-

derscored

by

the

bass,

which summarizes

the

cen-

tral

pitch

relationship

of

the

discourse

so far

by

alternating

repeatedly

c

and

G

(again

related

directly,

with

economy

equal

to

that

of the

introduction).

Thus

the inconclusive

appendix

flows

directly

into

the

following

modulating

arpeggiation.

The

reduc-

tion reveals again the exclusive reliance on the sigh

motif

and,

moreover,

a

return

of

the motif to the

pitch

level at

which

it was

initially

introduced

in

mm.

6-7.

The

pitch

C

dominates

the whole

appen-

dix

and is as

important

at the end

of m. 55 as it

was

at

the

beginning

of

m. 1.

As the motion to

the

second

key

and

theme

begins,

the

sigh

motif

and the

4 that

wants,

but does

not

quite manage,

to

exploit

it to descend

to 3

are

firmly

established

as the main

melodic protagonists

of

the discourse.

m. 52

53

54

in

g

Example

6:

Ballade,

mm.

52-54,

reduction.

The

only

motivically significant

element of

the

transition, x,

is

provided

by

the

empty

vertical fourths

and

fifths

in

the left

hand

(mm.

56-57,

60-61,

and

64-67),

which

in their recollection

of

horns,

the

ro-

mantic

emblem

of

sylvan

nature,

help

to

achieve

the

calando-smorzando-ritenuto

transition

from the

agi-

tated

figuration

of the

appendixes

to the meno

mosso

and sotto voce second

theme.

It

is

striking

that,

once

the

key

of G

minor has

finally

been

abandoned,

the

horn calls use

exclusively

cl and

the

Fs

above and

below

(mm. 64-67).

Thus

the

cl in mm.

64-67

picks

up

the cl

abandoned,

unresolved

at

the

end

of m.

55,

and

this

in

turn is

picked up, together

with

the

accompanying

fl,

in

m.

67

by

the

right

hand

as it

begins

the second theme. The

key

may

have

changed,

but

the

melodic

pitch

on which the

continuity

of

the

whole so

centrally

depends,C,

together

with its

tributaryF,

remains as

firmly

in

charge

as

ever.

The

second

theme,

B

(reduced

in ex.

7),

is,

like

the first

one,

polyphonic-consisting again

of

a

struc-

tural

melody

(in

ex.

7, upward

stems

plus

a few

embellishing

unstemmed

note

heads)

and

a lower

counterpoint.

This textural

similarity by

itself es-

tablishes

a link

between themes

B

and A. But there

are also

other,

more

specifically

motivic links with

the

preceding

music,

as

well

as links

of

pitch.

The

antecedent and

consequent

are almost identical me-

lodically, consisting essentially of two sighs, one on

fl,

the other on

c2,

and

a

descent from

5

to

1,

articu-

lated into individual

sighs

in the

antecedent,

linear

(despite

the

missing

4)

in the

consequent.

(In

view of

this

near

identity,

what

necessitates

the

consequent,

what makes it

nonredundant, is,

of

course,

that

in

the antecedent 1 is reached on a weak beat and is not

supported

by

the EL-tonic

chord,

both weaknesses

being

corrected

in

the

consequent.) Moreover,

in

theme

A the

consequent

had consisted

of

a

few

sighs

followed by a linear descent from 5 to 1, and the

antecedent had stated

the first and last

sigh

motives

at the same

pitch

level.

In

both

themes,

A

and

B,

the

melodic

highpoint

in

the

consequent

gets

additional

emphasis by

being prolonged

an octave

apart

n

two

registers

(cf.

mm. 21-25 and

79-80).

More

impor-

tant,

the

ubiquitous sigh

appearing

at several scale

degrees

is

again

the main motivic

component

of the

melody (on

a

most

fundamental

level,

both

the

ante-

cedent

and

consequent

of B are

large-scalesighs,

as

was the antecedent of

A).

And the

pitches singled

out

for

attention,

in

addition

to the

expected

bb2

and

eb2

5

and

1

in

the local

key),

happen

to

be their

upper

neighbors,

c2

and

fl,

the two

crucially important

pitches

mentioned above.

Note

the extent to

which

they

are

singled

out for

attention

on

the surface:the

vertical

dyad,

fl-cl,

itself

coming,

as

seen,

directly

from

the

horn

calls

of the

preceding

ransition,

opens

both the

antecedent and

the

consequent,

stressed

with an accent in the former and an arpeggio n the

latter.19

The

counterpoint

that

accompanies

the first

KAROL

BERGER

Chopin's

Ballade,

op.

23

'9The

arpeggio

s

present

in

Chopin's autograph

but not

in

the

French

and

German

first

editions,

in which

Chopin's

sign

has

been mistaken

for

a

redundant

natural,

a mistake

the

composer

missed

in

reading

Schlesinger's proofs.

This

situation,by

the

way,

might

lend

some credence o

Jan

Ekier'sclaim that the

Leipzig publishers

based their text

on

corrected

proofs

of

the

Schlesinger

edition

(see

n.

9

above).On the otherhand, it is also possible that whoever

copied

Chopin's

autograph

for

Breitkopf

and

Hartel

mis-

read the

composer's

notation

in

the

same

way

as

Schlesinger'sengraver

did.

59

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19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

m.

68 69

70 71 72

73 74

75 76

77 78

79 80

81

82

IJJ

IinE

1i/

in

EB

Example

7:

Ballade,

mm.

68-82,

reduction.

halves

of

both the antecedent and

consequent

is

again

relatedto the

one that

accompanied

he

melody

of the

first

theme,

consisting

of thirds filled

linearly,

this

time,

however,

ascending

rather than

descend-

ing. In short, whereas theme B could not be related

to the

remaining

thematic and

motivic material

of

the

Ballade while

remaining

on the

melodic sur-

face,20

this reduction has revealed

such

a

wealth

of

textural,

motivic,

and

even

pitch-centered

inks with

theme A and other music

preceding

theme

B

that

nothing

centralto the new theme now

appears

o

be

completely

new.

m. 82 83 84 85

86

S

WE

in

E6

Example

8:

Ballade,

mm.

83-90,

reduction.

The

appendix

of the second

theme,

b

(reduced

n

ex.

8),

is also

entirely

derivedfrom the main theme

or,

to be

exact,

from its

counterpoint.

Likethe coun-

terpoint of A, it consists entirely of thirds descend-

ing by

step.

In

addition,

it

is

constituted

by

one such

third, which,

moreover,

s sounded at

the same

pitch

level as most of those

in

theme A

(although

this

time,

of

course,

with an

ail,

since

the

key

has

changed).

That the structural ine descends

now

only

to 3 rather than

to 1

diminishes the sense

of closure

and

thereby

increases the

continuity.

In

this

respect,

the

appendix

of the second theme behaves as

para-

doxically

as those of the first

theme,

which

also

introduced

increasing

restlessness instead

of

con-

firming

the

stability

of

the theme's cadence.

Further

features

linking

the

appendix

with the

preceding

music include a

subtle echo of

a

gesture

from the

second

theme,

when

the

appendix

is

repeated

and

the

strong-beat

bils

in

mm.

87

and

88 resonate an

octave

higher,

n a recall of the transfer

of

the

melody

to the higher register, from

b'l

to b62(mm. 71 and

79).

And

finally,

note the

inner-voice

counterpoint

in

mm.

85-86

echoing

the

initial

thirds,

d2-c2-bi1,

in

the

minor

mode,

d6

1-ci 1-b.

This is the first

time

that the

c2-bil

motif,

followed

since the introduc-

tion,

gets

inflected to

cl

-bi

(and

note that

Chopin

marks

these

two

pitches,

not the initial

d

l,

with

accents).

The

significance

of this

inflection

will

be-

come

apparent

ater.

Thus,

by

the end of the first

period

the main

features on which

the work's

narrative conti-

nuity

depends

are

in

place.

The individual

phases

of

discourse are

connected

by

economi-

cal

and

rigorous

links of

motives and

pitches.

Everything

of

melodic

significance

is con-

structed

from a

single

motif

of extreme sim-

plicity

and

expressive-emblematic

resonance:

the

descending step,

with

the

descending (or

ascending)

linear thirds

playing

a

secondary,

accompanying

role.

Equally significant

is the

emphasis

on a

single pitch,

C,

and

secondarily

on

F,

as the threads

connecting

distinct and

often distant

phases

of

discourse,

threads

main-

tained even

through

a

change

of

the

local

key.

(Chopin may

have

chosen

these rather

than

other

pitches

because

they

are

the

only

two

diatonic scale

degrees

shared

by

G

minor and

Ek

major

that

are not members of the tonic

triads

in

these

keys;

consequently,

they

provide

par-

ticularly

unstable,

dynamic,

forward-pressing

melodic elements.

They

thus contribute to

the

overall

shape

of

the

piece,

which moves from

an

ill-defined,

uncertain

beginning

to an em-

phatically

stable and final

closure.)

The transition from Ei major in m. 90 to V of A

minor

in m.

94

proceeded

by

shifting

the bass

up-

ward

by

thirds,

from

Ei

(Ei major,

m.

90),

through

G

(G minor,

m.

91)

and Bi

(Bi major,

m.

92),

to d

(D

20Compare,

owever,

Alan

Rawsthorne's

observation:"This

second theme is a kind of

complement

to the

first,

a re-

statement

in

the

major

mode and

in

a more

consolatory

mood of the earlier utterance

in

G

minor. Both consist

basically

of the dominant thirteenth

resolving upon

the

tonic,

and both

proceed melodically

from the mediant to

the

key-note"

("Ballades,Fantasy

and

Scherzos,"

in

The

Chopin Companion:

Profiles

of

the Man and the Musi-

cian,

ed. Alan Walker

[New

York,

1973],p.

47).

60

7/17/2019 The Form of Chopin's Ballade, Op. 23

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m. 94 95 96 97 98 99

100 101 102 103

104

105

106

on

V/a/b

b

Example

9:

Ballade,

mm.

95-106,

reduction.

m.

106 107 108 109110

111 112

113 114

115

116 117 118

120

122

123

124

125 126

8/-------------------------

-----------------

------------------------------

I/A/B$

-V/eb

Example

10:

Ballade,

mm.

106-26,

reduction.

m. 126 130 131 132 133 134136 137

-

-V/e-

-

-/E- -- ---

.

?

-__

6/E

-

6

Example

11:

Ballade,

mm.

126-37,

reduction.

KAROL

BERGER

Chopin's

Ballade,

op.23

minor,

m.

93).

The

corresponding

shift

in

the struc-

turally

most

important

melodic

pitch

is

from

gl

in

m.

90,

through

d2 in

m.

91

(thus

recapturing

the

melodic

point

of

departure

of the first

theme),

to

eh

in

m.

94,

a motion

by

step again,

but

moving

upward

this

time,

the first

suggestion

after the inverted

sighs

of

the

main

theme that

upward

motion

may

come

to

play an importantrole in the melodic structuringof

the work.

By

the

beginning

of the

following

appen-

dix

(m.

95),

the e is transferred o the

appropriately

high register,

e2

(see

the reduction

in

ex.

9).

As the

reduction

shows,

the whole

dominant

preparation

that

follows

(mm. 95-106)

adopts

the

melody-with-

counterpoint

texture of the main

theme,

just

as it

adopts

its motivic

substance,

but

freely

mixes de-

scending

with

ascending steps (thus exploiting

the

inverted

sigh

motif observed

in

the

preceding

transi-

tion)

and creates from this mixture the first

signifi-

cant

ascending

structural melodic line of the work:

e2-f#2-g#2-a2-b2.21It

is

perhaps

not accidental that

the

beginning

of this

line

involves the same

pitches

as the

only ascending dyad

n

the

main

theme:

el-f#1

in

mm. 11-12

and 19-20. It should be

increasingly

clear that

Chopin

likes to

impart significance

to

specific pitches

and

to maintain

their

identity

through

changes

of

underlying keys.)

The b2

just

reached

(m.

106)

becomes the

melodic

point

of

departure

of

the

following phrase

(melody

reduced

in

ex.

10).

Until the

middle of the conse-

quent, this essentially reproduces he originaltheme

B

"on"

a

new

key (cf.

ex. 10 with ex.

7).

But the

second half

of the

consequent (after

m.

117),

instead

of

descending

from 5

to

1,

introduces a second as-

cending

line similar

to the

one

in

the

preceding

appendix:

e3-f#3-g#3-a#3-b3/cl1.

nly now,

when

the

B,

which

began

the

melody

of the

phrase,

has

been

reached

again

and

enharmonically

respelled,

does

another

descending

dyad

appear,

ontracted

this time

to a

semitone,

c

l-bk.Thus,

the

melody

of the

whole

phrase

can be reducedto the same

large-scale

sigh,

CO-BK.

he

appendix

that follows

(reduced

n

ex.

11)

serves then to

prolong

the

melodic

B6

reached in

m.

126 over the

dominant

harmony

preparing

the fol-

lowing key, embellishing

this B6

prominently

with

its

upper neighbor

CK.

It

is

because

of these

Cbs

hat

the

prepared

key

is E6minor

through

m.

134.

Only

in

mm. 135-36

is

ch3

prominently

introduced as

a

component

of

the

d3-c30-b2

motif

in

the left

hand,

so that the preparedkey changes into E6major.)

It

is

apparent

o what extent the

melodic

content

of the

introduction

and

of the

first

period

was

domi-

nated

by

one

pitch,

C,

and

the

dyad

descending

from

61

21Adorno

heard a

quotation

of this

passage

in

the second

movement of

Mahler's

Fifth

Symphony

(mm.

137-41),

"in

a momentof breathless ension"

(indeed,

a

very close,

although probably fortuitous, resemblance). Theodor W.

Adorno,

Mahler:

Eine

musikalische

Physiognomik,

Gesam-

melte

Schriften,

ol.

13

(Frankfurt

m

Main, 1971),

pp.

224-25.

7/17/2019 The Form of Chopin's Ballade, Op. 23

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19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

it,

C-BK.

The

melodic

events

just traced,

the

events

of the transition

between the first

period

and

the

episode,

can

be

interpreted

as a

contraction

of this

descending

whole

tone,

C-B1,

into

a

semitone,

CK-

B6.22

The principal stages of this process are the

establishment of b2as the main

melodic

pitch

in

m.

106

(an

event

whose

importance

is

emphasized

on

the surface

by

the

highest dynamic

level

reached so

far,ff,

and

by

b2

opening

the

repetition

of

theme

B

in

its

expressively

transformed

character),

he

reconfir-

mation

of

b3

in

m.

124

(again

underscored

on the

surface

by

the further

dynamic

intensification to the

climactic

fff),

he

enharmonic

respelling

of the

pitch

to cl

1

n m.

125,

and

its

resolution

to

b6

n

m.

126.23

The

correspondence

between the

C-B1

motif

of the

introduction

and

the first

period

and

the C1-B1

motif

of the

transition is

underscored further on

the sur-

face

by

the

striking

similarity

of

texture

and

register

between the

first

four measures of

the

appendix y

with

their

oscillation between

b6

and

cl1

(mm.

126-

29)

and the last

two measures

of

appendix

a3

with

their

oscillation

between

b6

and cl

(mm.

54-55).

As

mentioned

earlier,

the

scherzando24

pisode

in

EDmajor (mm. 138-66) consists of three harmoni-

cally

very

stable four-measure ncises followed

by

a

much

longer

and much

less

stable

final

incise,

which

reaches

a

cadential six-four

in m.

158,

prolongs

this

harmony,

and

then resolves

it

by

way

of

chromatic

passing

chords

in

mm.

162-65

to

V3,

at

the

begin-

ning

of the next

phrase

in

m. 166. The first incise

(mm.

138-41)

offers another

instance of

Chopin's

characteristic

"heterophonic"

texture in

which the

melody

is

presented

simultaneously,

although

with

considerablerhythmic displacementsandvariations,

in

two different octaves. Here the

melody

in

the

left

hand

(ex. 12)

reveals,

once

again,

exclusive reliance

on

dyads descending (or ascending)

by step,

with the

whole

melody

reducible to our Ur-motif

of

C-BK.

The

melody

in

the

right

hand

(ex.

13)

is a

variant of

the one

in

the

left,

to

the

extent that it

also

is reduc-

ible to the

C-B1

sigh. (A noteworthy

surface detail:

m.

138 139

140 141

'

oin

A

E-

n

Eb

Example

12:

Ballade,

mm.

138-41,

left

hand,

reduction.

m. 138

139

140 141

in

E6

Example

13:

Ballade,

mm.

138-41,

right hand,

reduction.

m. 146 147

148

149

150

in

E6

Example

14:

Ballade,

mm.

146-50,

reduction.

g2 always

intervenes between

c3

and

b62, just

as

it

did

in the

introduction

in

mm.

3 and

6-7.)

The

sec-

ond incise

(mm.

142-45)

is a close

variation,

almost

a

repetition,

of

the

first,

with

the left hand

giving

up

its

melodic role in the last

measure,2s

while

the

melody

in

the

right

hand

continues its

descent

chro-

matically

to

gl

in m.

146. The third

incise

(mm.

146-

49) gives up

the

heterophony altogether

and works

instead with

the

chromatic-scale idea

introduced

in

the

last measure of

the

preceding

one

(m. 145).

Its

melody (reduced

n ex.

14) essentially

prolongs

the

gl

to m. 150by means of a chromaticmotion up to and

down

from-what

else?--c2.

And

the last incise

(mm.

150-66)

works

initially

with

chromatic

dyads,

as-

cending

and

descending

(see

the notes

emphasized

in

the

right

hand in

mm.

150-53),

in

referenceto the

preceding

chromatic

scales,

producing

essentially

a

chromatic ascent from e

l

(m.

150)

to

c#2

(m.

154).

The

remaining

part

of

the

incise

(mm. 154-66)

oper-

ates with

motivically

neutral scales and

arpeggios,

with

no

genuinely

melodic

content,

and with the

main "line"transferred o the bass. The line reverses

the direction

of the chromatic-scale

motion to

pro-

duce the descent from

C#

(m. 154), through

BB#

=

C

(m. 156)

and C6

(m.

157),

to

BBI

(m.

158).

Thus as the

cadential

six-four

is

reached

on

the

downbeat of

m.

158,

the

BBI n

the bass

is

approached

rom

C6 in a

motion

recalling

the contracted form

of the

Ur-mo-

22Recall

he first

suggestion

hat

c1

might

be

inflected

o

cb1

n the

inner-voice

ounterpoint

f

appendix

(mm.

85

and

89;

see

ex.

8)

and

note the

accentswith

which

Chopin

marks

these

cdls,

but

not

the

preceding

dbls,

as

well

as

the

fact that the second time

around,

in

m.

90,

he does not

place

an accent

on

bb,

as

he

did

in m.

86,

wanting

he

unresolved

1

to

linger

n

the

memory

s

a

preparation

or

the

first

beatofm. 106.

Symmetrically,

he left-hand oun-

terpoint

d3-c3-bb2

n mm. 134-36

(see

ex.

11)

announces

that the Ur-motif

will

be

shortly

einflected

ack

o

C-Bb.

2It

was

this

sequence

of events that motivated

my

earlier

suggestion that the key of mm. 106-17 was "really"BM

major, enharmonically

notated to facilitate

reading.

24So

markedn the

autograph,lthough

ot in

the French

first

edition.

25At

some time between the

autograph

and

the

French

first edition, Chopin sharpened he interruptionby delet-

ing

a chord

in

m. 145: with the

chord,

the

chain of de-

scending steps

would extend

to

dl;

without

it,

an

eb1

s

deletedand he chain

tops

at

fl.

62

7/17/2019 The Form of Chopin's Ballade, Op. 23

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m.

166 167

168 169

170 171172173 174

175 176

177178 179

180

in

E6

Example

15:

Ballade,

mm.

166-80,

reduction.

m. 195 199 200 202

205 206 207

208

in g6 V7

ing

V4

V7 i

Example

16: Ballade, mm.

195-208,

reduction.

KAROL

BERGER

Chopin's

Ballade,

op.

23

tif that is

recognizable

from the transition and that

might

have been

thought

overcome

in

the

episode.

The

following prolongation

of

the bass

BBI

through

the bass motion from BBI

(m. 158),

through

cl

(m.

162)

and

C6

(m.

165),

back

to

BBI

(m.

166) manages

to

combine both forms of

the

motif,

C-B1

and

C0-B6,

n

a

grand summarizing gesture

as the

episode gives

way

to the last

period.

In

fact,

the

whole

episode,

from m. 138 to

m.

166,

can be seen as a

gigantic

prolongation

of

the

pitch

Bb,

prominently

embellished

with

both C and Cb.

The

appearance

of theme

B in mm.

166-80

(ex.

15)

is

in

pitch

content

an almost

literal

recapitula-

tion of

mm.

68-82

(cf.

with

ex.

7).

Two subtle vari-

ants,

however,

should be noticed.

First,

the omis-

sion of the first melodic note from the antecedent

(i.e., the missing fi in m. 166) is clearly designedto

focus all of the attention on

the

bass

BB6;

ts crucial

motivic

significance

has

just

been discussed. Sec-

ond,

the

counterpoint accompanying

the

main

melody

has been revised

in

orderto

stress,

instead of

the thirds

ascending by

step,

the more

typical

thirds

and

dyads

descending

by

step.

In

the

recapitulation

of

the

following

appendix

b

(mm.

181-88;

compare

with

the reduction of

the

correspondingpassage

in

ex.

8),

the

original

db

cl

-bb

counterpoint

is

not

completed (bb s missing in both m. 184and m. 188).

This not

only

returns

to

the

contracted form of the

Ur-motif,

but,

paradoxically,places

emphasis

on the

missing

bb,

as

if

to

say

that the descent from

Bb

o

Eb

in

the

preceding phrase

did

not

manage

to

challenge

Bbs

preeminence.

The retransition

from

Eb

major

back to

V

of G

minor

(mm. 189-94)

is

again

not a

true

modulation,

but

only

a

simple

shift from

the

E6-major

riad

(mm.

188-89)

to

the G-minor triad

(mm.

190-92),

which

accompanies the transferenceof the main melodic

pitch

from

gl

(m. 188)

to

bb1

(m.

189)

to

d2

(m. 190).

By

the end

of

the retransition

phrase,

this

d2

is not

only

established as the

point

of

departure

or the

structural

melody

of

the

following

two

appendixes (d2

in m.

195),

but

is

also shifted

to

the

bass

register,

where it

provides

a dominant

pedal

point

for the

appendixes

(d

and

D,

mm.

194-207,

with

DD

added

n

the last two

measures).

Moreover,

the

melodic

reduction

of

the

appendixes ex. 16)

shows

that

even when the tonic of

G minor is reached n m.

208,

d2

(i.e.,

5)

remains the

melodic

pitch,

which,

of

course,

is

one of the main

reasons

why

the music has to

continue,

even

though

the

tonic has been

regained.

It

will

be the tonal

function of the coda both to

confirm the tonic and

to

reach the melodic

1 in

a

convincing way.

The

coda,

like

the

episode,

consists

of

four

in-

cises whose motivic

content

might

be

represented

as

mmnnl,

with the final

incise

getting

out of con-

trol and exploding the eight-measureframework es-

tablished

in

the

preceding

one

(strictly

speaking,

it

had

consisted of nine measures

with

elision;

see

fig.

1).

The first and

second incises

(mm.

209-12

and

213-16;

ex.

17) prolong

d2,

embellishing

it with the

upper-neighbor

sighs,

and

then

descend,

again by

way

of

sighs,

to

bb .

The

third

incise

(mm. 216-24;

ex.

18)

continues the

stepwise

descent

all

the

way

to

gl. Significantly,

this

is

reached not

through

the

diatonic

A,

but

through

the chromatic

Ab--surely

a

backwardreference to the prominent Absin the in-

troduction.26 have

already

interpreted

this

promi-

nence

as a

way

of

preparing

he second

key

of the

work.

Retrospectively,

another

layer

can

be addedto

this

interpretation:

the

flattened

2

descending

to

1

makes

a

clear

reference

to the

contracted semitone

form of the

Ur-motif,

which

played

such

an

impor-

tant

role in

the central

phase

of the discourse.

In

26Rawsthornelso believes hat

the

Neapolitanharmony

in

the

passage

eginning

n m.216

may

echo the introduc-

tion

("Ballades,

antasy

nd

Scherzos," . 48).

63

7/17/2019 The Form of Chopin's Ballade, Op. 23

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19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

m. 208 209 210 211

212

212

213 214

215

216

in

g

Example

17:

Ballade,

mm.

208-16,

reduction.

m.

216

217 218 219 220 221 222 223

224

n

Example

18:

Ballade,

mm.

216-24,

reduction.

m.

224

225 226 227 228

229

230 231232 233 234 235

236 237 238 239 240 244 245

246

248 250

S--------------------

6

in

g

V4

V7 i

Example

19:

Ballade,

mm.

224-50,

reduction.

addition o

this overall tructural

igh-motif

escent

from

Ab

o

G,

the incisebrimsover

with

significant,

characteristic

details.

It

consists

first of a twice-

repeated

Ab-G

sigh

motif

(mm.216-19)

and

hen of

a

stepwise

octavedescent rom

g2

to

gl

through

wo

perfect

ourths,

rom

l

to cl

(mm.220-21)

and

rom

c2

to

gl (mm.222-24),

a descent hat

emphasizes

he

two

pitches

that

played

such

an

important

ole

be-

fore, l and,

n

particular,l/c2,

and

hatmanageso

articulate ncemore

in

m.

222)

he

c2-bbl

motif.

The last

incise

(mm. 224-50;

ex.

19) begins

like the

previous

one,

with twice

repeated sigh

motif

AL-G

(mm. 224-27).

It

continues,

also

similarly

to the

preceding

one,

with

a

tetrachord

descending

from

fl

to cl

(mm.

228-30).

The

chromatic

passing-note

c#1,

ntroduced

his time

into

the

descent, gives

the final

cl

a new em-

phasis,

and this becomes the

springboard

for

the

remaining portion

of the fourth

incise,

which

diverges

from

the

third one. Instead of

the descent

from c2 to

gl

in mm.

222-24,

there

is now a

prolongation

of C

through

three

oc-

taves,

from cl to

c3

(mm.

230-34).

Thus,

this

crucial

pitch

and scale

degree

is once more

explicitly

emphasized.

But what

happens

next

is the most

dramatic and

climactic reversal

in

the Ballade-a true

"catastrophe"

n the Aris-

totelian sense of

the term. On the surface

ap-

pears

the

awaited

tetrachordal descent from

c3

to

g2

by way

of

sighs

(mm. 234-35, repeated

an

octave

higher

in mm.

236-37).

The structural

melodic motion in the

background,

however,

is

upward,

from

c3

(m. 234)

to d2

(m. 235)

and

hence to

d3

(m.

237)

and

d4

(m.

238);

this last

pitch

is reached

simultaneously

with the

in-

crease

in

the

dynamic

level to

ff

and with

the

arrival of the

cadential dominant-function

six-

four chord. As the cadential harmonies move

from the six-four chord

(m.

238)

to V7

(m.

246)

to

i

(m. 250),

the

melodic

d4

is

moved to the

register

three octaves lower

(dl

in

m.

239),

and

then the ascent

from

C continues

through

el

(m. 240)

and

f#1

(m. 248),

both embellished

by

the

sigh-motif

upper neighbors,

to the

final

GG

(m.

250).

In

other

words,

whereas the third

incise ended

with

the tetrachord

descending

from 4 to 1 and thus

completed

the descent

already

promised

in mm.

6-7

of the

Ballade,

the last incise

gives

renewed

prominence

to

the

4,

with

which

the work

began

and which

reverberated

hrough

so much of the

discourse.

It then

"catastrophically"

and

heroically

re-

verses the direction

of the structural

melody

so

that

the final line of

the

work

is the

climactic

ascent from

4 to 1. Note

that this ascent

does

not come

unprepared;

on the

contrary,

it has

significant precedents.

Even on the

surface,

the

motivic

shapes

(intervallic

and

rhythmic)

in

64

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Marcia funebre sulla morte d'un Eroe

p

. . . . i--El] m-. ? ..Ir OW

73

4r l

KAROL

BERGER

Chopin's

Ballade,

op.

23

Example

20:

Beethoven,

Piano Sonata

in

Ab,

op. 26,

Marcia funebre

sulla

morte

d'un

Eroe,

mm.

1-4.

mm. 242-50 recall those

of two earlier

pas-

sages,

the

parallel points

of dominant

prepara-

tion

based on the

first theme

in mm. 101-06

and

201-06,

the

only

traditionally

developmen-

tal ones

in

the

work. Beneath the

surface,

the

structural melodic

ascent

D-E-F#-G

(=

5-#6-

#7-8)

in mm. 238-50

(see

ex.

19)

recalls the

ones

in

the

preceding

passages:

E-F#-G#-A-B

(= 5-#6-#7-8/1-2)

in mm.

99-106

(see

ex.

9)

and

D-E-F#-G-A-B

(=

5-#6-#7-8/1-2-3)

in mm.

195-

206 (see ex. 16). But while the earlier two as-

cents overshot their

targets,

the last

finally

gets

it

right

and

stops

at

the tonic's

prime,

thus

realizing

for the first

time the

closure

previ-

ously

implied.

The basic

function of

the

concluding appen-

dix

(mm. 250-64)

is to reinforce this

sense of

harmonic and melodic

closure

by

prolonging

the final tonic. The

appendix

does this

prima-

rily by covering much of the tonal space with

two

ascending,

G

melodic-minor

scales

(mm.

250-52 and

254-56)

and then

with

a

descend-

ing

chromatic one

(mm.

258-62;

combined

with

the left hand's

contrary-motion

chromatic as-

cent in mm.

258-59),

the

concluding

gestures

of tonal saturation that look

backward to the

opening-up

of

the tonal

space

in the initial

three measures of the

Ballade.27

In

purely

for-

mal terms, it would be difficult to imagine a

stronger,

more

emphatic

closure.

But the im-

port

of these final fifteen

measures is

not

purely

formal. Amid

the

clamor of

the

f-fff scales,

two

hushed moments

of

three

piano

ritenuto drum

strokes each

(mm.

252-53 and

256-57)

bring

to

mind,

subtly

but

insistently,

a funeral march

heard from

a

distance.28

The

allusion

may

be

even more

specific

than that. The

dotted-

rhythm upbeat-to-downbeat

form of

the motif

is identical

to

that

opening

the slow

move-

ments

in

Beethoven's Piano Sonata in

Ab,

op.

26

(1800-01),

the

Marcia

funebre

sulla

morte

d'un

Eroe

(this

was the Beethoven

sonata that

seems

to

have been

most often

played

and

taught by Chopin;29

ex.

20),

and

in

his

Sym-

phony

in

Eb

Eroica),

op.

55

(1803),

the Marcia

funebre (ex. 21), the two most famous, early

nineteenth-century

funeral marches celebrat-

ing

the death of

a

revolutionary

hero. The end-

ing

of

the

Ballade,

no matter how

emphatic

and

conclusive,

is

not

triumphant,

joyous,

or

ecstatic,

but

catastrophic,

heroic,

and

tragic.

The narrative ends

successfully

in

the sense

that it reaches its

appointed goal,

but,

as in the

biography

of a

revolutionary,

the

achievement

of the conclusion requiresa heroic effort and is

paid

for with the

protagonist's

death.

The most overt

motivic reference

in

the

final

appendix

is,

of

course,

the

twice-repeated

evo-

cation of the

opening

of the main

theme

(itself

an idea

with several motivic cross-references

in the

work)

in

mm.

253-54

and

257-58.

The

first of these

presents

for the last time

the

Ur-

motif

sigh

of

cl-bb

with which the Ballade had

opened in mm. 6-7 (see ex. 1 again). The sec-

ond raises the motif a third to

eb2-d2,

reproduc-

ing

the middle-voice

counterpoint

that accom-

panied

the first

presentation

of the Ur-motif

in

mm.

7-8.

Thus,

in the final

measures of the

27And f one glances beyond the closed context of this

composition,

the

gestures

look also forward to the

final,

"cadential"

measures of

Schoenberg's Erwartung.

See

Rosen,

Arnold

Schoenberg(New

York,

1975), pp.

57-59.

28An

allusion

to

an

unspecified

funeral march

in

these

low-register

chords is identified

by Igor

Belza in

Fryderyk

F. Chopin(2ndedn. Warsaw,1980),p. 184;and by Leikin,

The

Dissolution

of

Sonata

Structure,

p.

256.

29See

he references to the work

in

Eigeldinger, Chopin:

Pianist

and Teacher.

65

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19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

Marcia unebre.

Adagio

assai

Fl.

Ob.

Ci.

Bsn.

I. I nC

III in Es

Trpt.

n C

Timp.

sotto voce

Vn.II

PP

Vn.

b

Via. __Ii

-P

Vc.

A

I

-9.

2

pp

Example

21:

Beethoven,

Symphony

in

E6

Eroica),op.

55,

Marcia

funebre,

mm.

1-2.

Ballade,

its main motivic idea

reappears

suc-

cessively

at the

pitch

levels at which it

had

originally appeared

almost) simultaneously.

IV

A

summary

is

now

in

order. The narrative

continuity

in the G-MinorBallade

depends pri-

marily

on two factors:

(1)

the

threads

provided

by

a

single sigh

motif,

which

generates

with

astonishing economy

the essential motivic sub-

stance of the

work;

(2)

the obsessive

focusing

on a

single

pitch,

C,

which maintains its iden-

tity

even

through

the

changes

of

underlying

keys

and

which,

as the

opening pitch

of the Ur-

motif

C-Bk, generates

the

expectation

of

the

structural

melodic descent

from the

fourth

to

the first

scale

degree

of the main

key.

The

expectation

is

repeatedly

frustrated,

and

the

work concludes

instead with a

climactic,

cata-

strophic-heroic

reversal of the

structural

melody's

direction,

that

is,

with an ascent from

4

to

1 in mm.

230-50.

66

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These essential

threads

of narrative

continu-

ity

would

remain

undiscovered

without

reach-

ing

below

the

surface

and

reducing

the

melody

phrase by phrase.

Reduction

of

this sort

does

not have to

go very

deep

(to

go

deeper

might

prove

counterproductive):

when

analyzing

the

music

of

composers

not

known for a

taste

for

ciphers

and

puzzles,

one

should

remain

close

to

what

is

aurally perceivable.

All

that is re-

quired

is

to

strip

the surface

of

the

most obvi-

ous

embellishments

and

distinguish

individual

melodic

lines

and

counterpoints

that

may

be

hidden in the ostensibly homophonic texture.

In

a

characteristically

perceptive

"dialecti-

cal" observation

designed

to

answer

the obtuse

accusation

that

Chopin's

was

merely

"salon

music,"

Carl

Dahlhaus

argued

that

the term

"salon

music"

is

thoroughly appropriate,

pro-

vided

the authentic

spirit

of

the

philosophical

and

literary

salon

is not

misconstrued:

This spirit was markedby essays and dialoguesin a

conversational

tone,

not

by

disquisitions

and learned

treatises.

We

need

only

take

the

Classical

sonata

literally

as a

thematic

disquisition,

a meditation

in

notes,

to understand

why

the sonata

principle

and

salon

music

were

mutually

exclusive.

.

. .

Salon

music's

conversational

tone

in no

way implied

that

the

composer

had

studiously

to avoid

saying

any-

thing

substantial

lest he

be accused of

pedantry.30

Writing of the G-Minor Ballade, Dahlhaus sub-

sequently

observed:

"If

sophistication

and

idio-

syncrasy

are

hidden beneath

the

seemingly

straightforward

surface of

this

work,

the

genu-

ine

spirit

of

the salon

demands

not

only

that

the music harbor

an element

of artifice

but

that

this element

be

kept

concealed.

(Ever

ince

the

Renaissance,

the aesthetic

motto of

aristo-

cratic music culture

was nascondere

l'arte:

art

must be concealed.)"31 n reaching below the

melodic

surface

of the

Ballade,

one

is able to

uncover

the

threads

of

continuity

that

provide

the discourse

with a musical

logic equal

in its

rigor

to that

of a

sonata,

without

displaying

this

logic

directly through

the

techniques

of

thematic and

motivic

development,

and with-

out

forcing Chopin

to abandonhis

light-handed

aristocratic

sprezzatura

foracademic

gravitas.32

Thus

the

composer's

individual answer to

the

generalproblem

of

continuity

raised

by any

narrative

orm,

an answer

given

from the

stand-

point

of the aesthetics

of the

salon,

involved

the

invention of a new

kind of

"developmen-

tal"

technique33

and

its

deployment

in a new

kind of

genre,

arguably

he first

artistically sig-

nificant

result

in a series of

nineteenth-century

attempts

to

provide

a viable alternative to the

Classical

sonata.34 chumann's

report

ndicates

the

importance Chopin

himself attached to

his

op.

23 in what he told Schumann about

the

work

during

their

meeting

of 12

September

1836:

"I

also

told

him

that

this was

my

favorite

among

all

[his

works].

After a

long thoughtful

rest,

he said

with

great emphasis:

'I

like

this,

it

is also

my

favorite'."35

And no wonder:

at

the

time,

it

was

undoubtedly Chopin's

most ambi-

tious,

original,

and

successful

large-scale

com-

KAROL

BERGER

Chopin's

Ballade,

op.

23

30Dahlhaus,

Nineteenth-Century

Music,

trans.

J.

Bradford

Robinson

(Berkeley

and Los

Angeles,

1989),

p.

148.

3'Ibid.,p.

149.

32Chopin's

mondanite

is

exceedingly

well documented

in

his

correspondence.

Less

well

known,

but

equally

charac-

teristic,

is his ironic

attitude toward

academic manners

he

had

a chance to observe

during

a

scientific

congress

in

Berlin

in

September

1828.

The three extant

letters from

Berlin to

his

family

in

Warsaw

are

peppered

with

quickly

drawn, biting

anecdotes

and caricatures. See

Chopin,

Korespondencia,

,

81-85.

33Note

Jim

Samson's

related observation

that

in

the So-

nata

in B

Minor, op. 58,

thematic

links are

not

only

a

means of

unifying

thematic contrasts but also a contribu-

tion

to

"a

process

of continuous

development

and trans-

formation

within

the

bar-by-bar

rogression

of the move-

ment,

an unbroken

thread

spun

of

related ideas."

Samson

writes

further of "the

subtle,

minutely

detailed

motivic,

harmonic

and

rhythmic

cross-references

which ensure

con-

tinuity

of

thought"

(The

Music

of

Chopin [London,

1985],

p. 133).

34Emile

Bosquet,

J6zef

Chomifiski,

and

Jim

Samson

are fun-

damentally

correct to see

in

Chopin's

Ballades

predeces-

sors

and

pianistic

equivalents

of Liszt's

symphonic poems.

EmileBosquet,"Chopinprecurseure poeme pianistique,"

Annales

Chopin

3

(1958),

63-67;

J6zef

M.

Chomifiski,

Fryderyk

Chopin,

trans.

Bolko Schweinitz

(Leipzig,

1980),

p.

100; Samson,

The Music

of

Chopin,

p.

175.

35"Auch

sagte

ich es

ihm,

dass

es

mir

das

Liebste unter

allen

sei.

Nach einer

langen

Pause

Nachdenken

sagte

er

mit

grossem

Nachdruck:

Das ist

mir

lieb,

auch

mir

ist es

mein

Liebstes"'

(Robert

Schumann's

letter to Heinrich

Dorn

in

Riga, Leipzig,

14

September

1836,

quoted

in

Chopin,

Korespondencia,

I,

420).

Compare

the

entry

in

Schumann's

personal

diary, Leipzig,

12

September

1836:

"In

the

morning,

Chopin

... 'His

Ballade I like best of

all.'

I am verygladof that; I am very glad of that" (quotedfrom

Eigeldinger,

Chopin:

Pianist and

Teacher,

p.

268).

On

the

question

of whether Schumann's

words refer to

op.

23 or

op.

38,

see

Belotti,

F.

Chopin

l'uomo,

pp.

571-74.

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19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

position,

his answer to those

compatriots

who,

like

Mickiewicz,

urged

the

composer

to under-

take a

larger

work and not to waste his

creative

powers

on miniatures.36

But

while

the

novelty

and the

far-reaching

implications

of both the

technique

and the

genre

are

undeniable,

neither

the

technique

nor

the

genre

is

completely

without

precedent.

As

Schumann remarked: "The word 'ballad' was

transferred to music

first

by

Chopin.

By

the

way,

only

the word seems new to

us,

one can

find

the matter

already

in Beethoven and

Schubert."37 have alreadynoted the exact ex-

tent and limits of the debt

that the form of

Chopin's op.

23

owes

to the

Classical

sonata-

allegro.

The

developmental technique

of the

work also has its roots

in sonata

practice, spe-

cifically

in Beethoven's

principle

of

"contrast-

ing

derivation" of

a later theme from an earlier

one,38

but

was

deployed

by

Chopin

with un-

usual

rigor,

so

that,

instead of

supplementing

the Classical techniques of thematic and

motivic

development,

it

could

replace

them.

The

general

formal

shape

of the

Ballade,

with

its intense orientation

toward the

ending, may

also owe

something

to the

example

of the tri-

umphantly

emphatic

Beethovenian

codas,

al-

though

Chopin

characteristically replaced

the

sense

of

triumph

with

one of

tragedy.39

Of all the

greatcomposers

of his remarkable

generation,Chopinhas always seemed the least

touched

and least awed

by

what so

many

of

his

contemporaries

experienced

as the simulta-

neously liberating

and

paralyzing

example

of

Beethoven.40

Chopin

himself extolled Bach and

Mozart

above all other

predecessors,

and

his

best-known remark

concerning

Beethoven

(made

to

Eugene

Delacroix on

7

April 1849),

to

the

effect

that

Mozart never

turned his

back

on

the eternal

principles

of

counterpoint,

as

Beethoven

occasionally

did,

is characteristicof

his

classicist convictions

(only

classicists

be-

lieve that

artistic

principles

can be ever

eter-

nal).41But,

while

there is no

reason

to

doubt

the

composer's

sincerity,

the

affinity

between

the

technique

uncovered

here that

provides

the

Ballade with continuity and Beethoven's prin-

ciple

of

"contrasting

derivation"

suggests

that

Chopin may

have

paid

closer attention

to

Beethoven's sonatas than has hitherto been sus-

pected.

Indeed the G-Minor

Ballade seems

to show

several further traces of such

attention,

traces

that

go

beyond

the

affinity

of

technique.

One of

these has

already

been mentioned: the allusion

to the Marciafunebre sulla morte d'un Eroein

the

concluding

appendix.

In

addition,

I

hear

in

the Ballade traces of a

preoccupation

with the

first

movement of Beethoven's Piano

Sonata

in

D

Minor,

op.

31,

no.

2,

of

1802. First and fore-

most,

Chopin's introductory Largo

s reminis-

cent

of the

Largo

sections

in

Beethoven's

open-

ing

theme

(mm.

1-2 and

7-8

in ex.

22):

both

arpeggiate

a

major

triad

in

first

inversion,

and

both provide a somewhat tentative, hesitant

beginning

to a

tempestuous composition.

Chopin

links the introduction

and the main

theme

by

not

completing

the former until

the

latter had

already begun;

Beethoven

makes

the

beginning

of the

main theme sound

like an

introduction. The

similarity

is even

stronger

when Beethoven's

theme is

recapitulated

(mm.

143-58

in ex.

23),

and the

arpeggiated

chords

evolve into instrumental recitatives, the way

the

opening

chord

does in

Chopin's

introduc-

tion

(and

the similarities

extend here

even

to

individual

recitative

gestures:

compare

36See

Niecks,

Frederick

Chopin

as

a Man and a

Musician,

I, pp.

276-78.

37"DasWort Ballade'rugwohl zuerstChopin n die Musik

iiber.

Obrigens

scheint

uns

nur das Wort

neu,

die Sache

kann

man schon

in

Beethoven

und

Schubert finden"

(Schumann,

Gesammelte

Schriften,II, 343).

38In

his discussion

of the

Ballade, Dahlhaus

(Nineteenth-

Century

Music,

p.

148)

notes

the derivationof

what I

have

labeled

in

fig.

2

as b from

the

opening

of

A,

and he relates

this to

Beethoven's

"contrasting

derivation"

principle.

39In

an

1836

review,

Schumann

observed:

"A

genuine

mu-

sical

structure

will

always

have a certain

focal

point

to-

ward which

everything gravitates,

on which

all the

imagi-

native strands

converge.

Many composers place

it

in the

middle (as Mozart does), others toward the close (like

Beethoven)" quoted

rom

Reinhold

Brinkmann,

Late

Idyll:

The Second

Symphony

of Johannes

Brahms,

trans. Peter

Palmer

[Cambridge,

Mass., 1995],p.

203).

4?Compare

Rosen's

view:

"Perhaps

only

Chopin,

coming

from

a

provincial

musical

culture,

succeeded

in

being

com-

pletely

free from its

[the

prestige

of

Beethoven]

spell"

(The

Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven [New York,

1972],p.

379).

41EugEne

elacroix,

Journal,

vol.

I,

ed. Andre

Joubin

Paris,

1932),

p.

284;

trans. Walter

Pach

(New York,

1961), p.

195.

68

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Largo

Allegro

Adagio

Ii

7

Largo

Allegro

p p

cresc.c

14

p-N-f

---

.--

- -

-

--

A m f m m m . 0m1F:mqm

IF *

KAROL

BERGER

Chopin's

Ballade,

op.

23

Example

22:

Beethoven,

Piano Sonata

in

D

Minor, op. 31,

no.

2,

Largo-Allegro,

mm. 1-22.

137

Largo

p

s

-

con

espressionesemplice

I

I

4y'

I

01

147

Allegro

Adagi -

SL7 IICIeSC.

7

F

4

cresc.:

.

153

Largo

I

con

espressionesemplice

I.

Example

23:

Beethoven,

Piano Sonatain

D

Minor,

op.

31,

no.

2,

Largo-Allegro,

mm.

137-58.

69

7/17/2019 The Form of Chopin's Ballade, Op. 23

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-form-of-chopins-ballade-op-23 26/27

19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

9 ~

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Example

24:

Beethoven,

Piano Sonata

in

D

Minor,

op.

31,

no.

2,

Largo-Allegro,

mm.

39-76.

Beethoven's

mm.

147-48

with

Chopin's

mm.

6-8).

Second,

the

Allegro

sections

of

Beethoven's

main theme

(mm.

3-6

and

9-21

in

ex.

22)

are

constructed from two-note

groups,

most of

which,

at least

initially,

take

the form of

the

sigh motif. The motif is, of course, too ubiqui-

tous

in

music to establish

by

itself

any

rela-

tionship

between the two

works,

but

in

con-

junction

with the more

specific

similarity

of

the

two

openings,

its

presence

is

telling.

Third,

the Beethoven movement

can

serve, together

with

many

other

sonata

movements

by

the

composer,

as

a model

of motivic derivation

of

one thematic idea from another: note the ex-

tent

to which the

thematic ideas of the

second-

key

area

are

permeated

by

the two-note

groups,

70

7/17/2019 The Form of Chopin's Ballade, Op. 23

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and

specifically

the

sigh

motif,

of

the

main

theme

(see

in

particular

mm. 42-54 and

69-75

in

ex.

24).

Taken

individually,

each

of

these

Beethovenian traces in the Ballade may be of

little

consequence

(although

the allusion

to

the

funeral march of

op.

26

is

significant

and

the

similarity

of the introduction

to

the

Largos

of

op.

31,

no.

2,

seems to

me

too

close

to be

wholly accidental).

Taken

together,

they

sug-

gest

that

Chopin

may

have

developed

his

tech-

nique

of narrative

continuity

and

his

new

genre

of the

Ballade

that embodies it in a more direct

confrontation with some aspectsof Beethoven's

legacy

than

previously suspected.

In

saying

this,

I

do not

wish

to

challenge

Chopin's

self-image.

His

work

does stem from

Mozart's to

a

much

greater

extent than

from

Beethoven's.

If,

with

Dahlhaus,

one

recognizes

not

one

but two

"twin musical

cultures"

in

the

nineteenth

century,

a

Rossinian culture of the

beautiful centeredon self-sufficient

melody (an

aristocratic, operatic, Romance culture for

which

music was

a

real

performing

event)

and

a

Beethovenian

culture

of

the sublime centered

on

processual

form

grounded

in

thematic de-

velopment (a middle-class,

symphonic,

Ger-

manic culture for

which music was an

ideal

work

requiring

interpretations),42

Chopin's

af-

finity

with the former and

distance

from

the

latter cannot be in doubt.

But dichotomies

of

this sort are useful only when they are treated

not

as

rigid systems

of

classification

("Rossini

qua,

Beethoven

la")

but

as flexible heuristic

tools

allowing

one

to

recognize that,

in

any

actual

phenomenon,

features

of

the twin

ideal

types

are mixed

and

intertwined

in a

complex

fash-

ion,

and to describe the

mixture

with some

pre-

cision. With

exhilarating

(and

for the

pedants,

maddening)abandon,Chopin

transgressed

most

of the familiar boundariesone can think of, the

boundaries

between

aristocracy

and middle

class,

femininity

and

masculinity,

performance

and

print,

nationalist

periphery

and

cosmopoli-

tan center of

Europe,

classicism and

romanti-

cism,

political

and social

conservatism and

revo-

lution,

to

pick just

a few

at

random.

True,

he

was a

Mozartian,

with

his relative

lack of

inter-

est in thematic

development

and

his

fixation

on melody. But, to an extent greaterthan hith-

erto

suspected,

he

may

have

been a

e

post-Beethovenian

sort

of Mozartian.

KAROL

BERGER

Chopin's

Ballade,

op.

23

42Dahlhaus,

Nineteenth-Century

Music,

pp.

8-15.

71