Liszt: Ballade No.1 in Db Major, S.170 (Fischer, Pierdomenico)

Liszt’s first Ballade is a pretty sadly underrated work, probably because its sibling in B minor, written around 10 years later, has a much more obviously ambitious narrative scope. But the first ballade too is a lovely work of great craft. It’s essentially a series of variations on two themes – a cantabile melody in thirds, and a contrasting gently humorous march. The variations on the first theme are especially striking – all of them heavily emphasise the dominant and are built around untethering the movement of the melodic and non-melodic hands (hence all that hand-crossing). It’s the kind of ingenious textural exploration that Liszt would also deploy La Campanella, and generates some wonderful results here. [A little note: the first theme is actually in two parts, and in the analysis below I’ve separated the two parts when numbering variations to better take into account all of Liszt’s changes in texture.] The march theme, which constitutes the middle section of the work, rather sneakily integrates a motif first heard in the work’s introduction, and undergoes some pretty striking transformations to eventually turn, at its climax, into an anguished cry. (The transformation of Motif A into a heroic theme at 4:36 is also pretty neat.) After the middle section, the variations on the first theme resume, and a heart-stoppingly delicate, glittering final variation (7:04) leads into a final statement of the march theme, which closes the work.

INTRODUCTION
0:00 – An improvisatory line ascends out of the bass (it’s nice entertaining the thought that this is a homage to Chopin’s Op.23), followed by Motif A descending. This pattern is repeated, the second time with diminished 7th harmony.

A SECTION, in Db
0:43 – Theme 1a, a lush melody built around tonic/dominant oscillation, is introduced.
1:11 – T1a, Var.1. Languorous hand-crossing, with Ab pedals in RH.
1:39 – Theme 1b, beginning in the relative minor.
2:05 – T1b, Var.1. Trills in the upper register, then chromatic mediant colour at 2:17.
2:38 – T1a, Var.2. Gentle cross-rhythms strongly emphasising the dominant, plus lots of free-hand-crossing.
2:59 – T1a, Var.3. Broken Ab octaves gently daubing the entire upper half of the keyboard. Still more hand-crossing.

B SECTION, in A
3:24 – Theme 2, an initially hopeful, even self-deprecating march. Modulates into dark C# min at its tail.
3:46 – T2, Var.1. T2 moves up one octave, while the LH now places widely-spaced but nearly empty chords. The modulating tail now takes on a dramatic character and leads into
4:07 – T2, Var.2. Triumphant, in E, with an implied B pedal.
4:15 – Motif A makes a surprise return from the introduction, retaining its slightly tipsy character. But at 4:36, it’s suddenly diverted from its usual downward scurry and attains a rather triumphant sound.
4:48 – T2, Var.3, in F#. Broad and powerful, with lush chords in the LH. But the tail of the theme at 5:02 launches the melody into a sequence of increasingly dramatic modulations over a descending/ascending octave line in the LH, culminating in
5:19 – T2, Var.4. A climactic statement of the march in F# min, with agonising leaps in the LH. But then a zipper-like scale leads back to
5:31 – Motif A, now with alternating chords in both hands. Motif A is developed as before, taking on a more dramatic character, until it culminates in
6:00 – Two strepitoso octave descents, leading back to the

A SECTION, in Db
6:15 – T1a, Var.4. The theme now forceful, while Abs leap from the bass into the top registers of the piano.
6:31 – T1a, Var.5 Leaping trills on Ab in the RH (hand-crossing inevitable), with occasional chromatic runs. (La Campanella vibes on this one)
6:48 – T1b, Var.2. Triplet runs in the RH, with decorative harmonic neighbour tones.
7:04 – T1b, Var.3. The most drastic transformation in this work. The melody dissolves into a series of downward arpeggiated runs that gradually descend the keyboard and grow in strength, reaching the
CODA
7:38 – T2 returns in ff, rapidly ascending the piano until m.188, when Motif A brings us back down to the final tonic-submediant oscillation at m.190 (this is the harmonic progression on which the march is built; see the LH at m.63).