Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin,was a Polish composer and
virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era, who wrote
primarily for the solo piano. He gained and has
maintained renown worldwide as one of the leading
musicians of his era, whose "poetic genius was based on
a professional technique that was without equal in his
generation." Chopin was born in what was then the Duchy
of Warsaw, and grew up in Warsaw, which after 1815
became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he
completed his musical education...(+)
Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin,was a Polish composer and
virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era, who wrote
primarily for the solo piano. He gained and has
maintained renown worldwide as one of the leading
musicians of his era, whose "poetic genius was based on
a professional technique that was without equal in his
generation." Chopin was born in what was then the Duchy
of Warsaw, and grew up in Warsaw, which after 1815
became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he
completed his musical education and composed many of
his works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of
20, less than a month before the outbreak of the
November 1830 Uprising.
The Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52 is a ballade for
solo piano by Frédéric Chopin, completed in 1842 in
Paris. It is commonly considered one of the
masterpieces of 19th-century piano music. Of the four
ballades, it is considered by many pianists to be the
most difficult, both technically and musically. It is
also the longest, taking around ten to twelve minutes
to perform. According to John Ogdon, it is "the most
exalted, intense and sublimely powerful of all Chopin's
compositions... It is unbelievable that it lasts only
twelve minutes, for it contains the experience of a
lifetime.
The circumstances of composition are poorly documented,
though it appears that Chopin began composing shortly
after the completion of Ballade No. 3. By December
1842, the ballade was finished, and he offered it for
sale to Breitkopf & Härtel, along with the Heroic
Polonaise and the fourth Scherzo. The work was
dedicated to Baroness Rothschild, wife of Nathaniel de
Rothschild, who had invited Chopin to play in her
Parisian residence, where she introduced him to the
aristocracy and nobility. In the preface to his edition
of Chopin's ballades, Alfred Cortot claims that the
inspiration for this ballade is Adam Mickiewicz's poem
The Three Budrys, which tells of three brothers sent
away by their father to seek treasures, and the story
of their return with three Polish brides.
A phrase in the dominant major (marked piano) opens the
seven introductory bars and leads into the first
subject of sonata-form exposition, a melody with
Slavonic coloration. The first theme undergoes four
cumulative transformations with decorations,
counter-melodies, counterpoint, and a nocturne-like
fioritura. The development of the second theme and its
intertwining with the first heightens the complexity of
the musical structure and builds tension. Through the
intertwining and thus the simultaneous development of
the two themes, Chopin effectively combines the use of
both the sonata form and the variation form. The body
of the piece concludes with a series of accented
fortissimo chords, followed by a momentary calm of five
pianissimo chords. This then suddenly leads into an
extremely fast, turbulent coda, written in exuberant
counterpoint. Structurally, Ballade No. 4 is decidedly
intricate.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballade_No._4_(Chopin)).
Although composed for solo piano, I created this
Interpretation of the Ballade in F Minor (Opus 52) for
String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
