What is Ballade (classical music)?
''This article is about the instrumental ballade that was popular in the 19th century. For the medieval French ballade see [[Ballade]]''. A '''ballade''' is a piece of [[music]], usually for [[piano]]. It has several tunes, and one can easily imagine that it is telling a [[story]] (a [[ballade]] is a [[Middle Ages|medieval]] [[France|French song]] which tells a story). The first [[composer]] who used the title “ballade” for his piano pieces was [[Frédéric Chopin]]. He wrote four ballades. They are quite free in form. Chopin does not tell us about any particular story he had in mind. Perhaps they are just musical stories. They are four of his finest works. Later on other composers also wrote ballades: [[César Franck]] and [[Franz Liszt]] in particular. [[Johannes Brahms]] wrote ballades for piano which are quite like songs in their form. [[Edvard Grieg]] wrote a ballade which was based on a [[Norway|Norwegian]] song. [[Gabriel Fauré]] wrote a ballade for piano and orchestra. Some composers wrote ballades for orchestra, but they are really like short [[symphonic poem]]s. [[Category:Musical forms]]