The Ballade in F harp major is probably the most popular and widely-played of all Fauré's instrumental works in its version for Piano and orchestra, completed and first performed in 1881. It was published the same year as Fauré's first Piano composition. But it had been preceded by a version for solo Piano, whose date of composition is earlier by at least one year, maybe more. This was the version shown by Fauré to Liszt (to whom he had been introduced by Saint-Saens), and which drew the celebrated and astounding comment "C'est trop difficile" from the ageing author of Mazeppa! The difficulties, of course, are more musical than technical ones, though the original version, rarely performed today, is harder to play than the symphonic one, in which the orchestra takes over some of the musical subject-matter. In this youthful work, much of Fauré's harmonic refinement is already to be found. The general atmosphere of the spacious work is pastoral bliss and a rare sense of nature poetry pervades the free succession of its four interlinked episodes. The first is a slow introduction (Andante cantabile), whose tender and melancholy theme, a melody of great expressive charm, acts as a second subject in the ensuing Allegro moderato in 6/8 time. A short Andante transition leads to the central Allegro in 4/4 time, in which a third theme is added to the preceding material. This part culminates in a brief but brilliant cadenza, after which another short Andante introduces the final Allegro moderato in 6/8 time. in which the animation of the middle-part gives way to the delicious enchantment of a spring-time forest at dawn. This beguiling conclusion, with its magic trills and quiverings, an astonishing premonition of musical impressionism written when Debussy was a lad of eighteen, has given birth to the probably spurious tradition according to which the Ballade was inspired by Wagner's Waldweben: one could not imagine two pieces of music more strikingly different from each other!
Harry HALBREICH
Marinkyo's School > Gabriel Fauré > Harry Halbreich > Gabriel Fauré / The Ballade
