A lesser-known salon Ballade reflecting the feminine elegance often found in 19th-century amateur-oriented piano literature. It prioritizes melody and harmonic clarity over overt virtuosity.
Focus on refining the tone quality in the right hand to create a truly expressive, singing quality.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Ballade is rated Henle level 4 of 9 — intermediate repertoire, roughly ABRSM grades 5–6. In the RCM system it corresponds to about level 5.
You should be comfortable at Henle level 4 — meaning you can already play level 3–4 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 lasts about 4 minutes.
Ballade 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 Ballade by Aline Hundt, Capriccio à la hongroise by Aline Hundt, Albumblad by Oskar Merikanto — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.