for solo piano
World Premiere: March 3, 2001, by Melissa Howe, piano, at the Society of Composers, Inc. National Student Conference, Indiana School of Music, Bloomington, IN.
Recording by: Steven Masi, piano.
Program Notes:
I have a quasi-religious relationship to Chopin’s Ballades. If I stumble upon one of them unexpectedly, I have to stop and sit down. Years ago, I communed with the Ballades to such a degree that now I almost fear them. I go near them in the comfort of my own home only when I am suitably prepared for the kind of extended deep-sea diving they require of me. Of all Chopin’s Ballades, I was most deeply affected by the Fourth. I’d read that Chopin wanted this Ballade to have a “sickly, creepy” feeling, which reminded me of Thom Yorke’s statement that the goal of Radiohead’s “OK Computer” was to make the listener feel emotionally “nauseated.” In both cases these characterizations struck me as fascinatingly apt. On some level these emotional crosscurrents lie at the heart of my work on Ballade, as do so many technical and structural influences from Chopin’s Ballades. For these reasons, and as a kind of homage, I felt it proper to call the piece Ballade, though it should be said that Ravel and Debussy figure prominently as influences as well.
Ballade is dedicated to the pianist and composer Laurie Altman, my piano teacher throughout middle and high school, who introduced me to Chopin.