A rare salon-style work by the Corsican composer Luigi Bordèse. It is characteristic of the mid-19th-century focus on lyrical, folk-influenced melodies designed for domestic performance.
The performer must focus on a sustained, vocal-like tone quality throughout the melodic phrases.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Ballade corse is rated Henle level 5 of 9 — late intermediate repertoire, roughly ABRSM grades 6–7. In the RCM system it corresponds to about level 6.
You should be comfortable at Henle level 5 — meaning you can already play level 4–5 pieces cleanly. Learning it one level early is possible as a stretch piece, but more than that usually leads to months of frustration.
A typical performance of Ballade corse lasts about 4 minutes.
Ballade corse is available as free public-domain sheet music on IMSLP — the score is linked directly from this page.
Pieces at a comparable difficulty and character include Nocturne in C-sharp minor by Frédéric Chopin, Pavane pour une infante défunte by Maurice Ravel, Waltz in C-sharp minor, No. 2 by Frédéric Chopin — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.