Stephan Elmas was a late-Romantic Armenian composer whose writing is heavily influenced by the virtuosity of Liszt and Chopin. This ballade demonstrates dense, orchestral piano textures and a highly chromatic harmonic palette.
The player needs a wide reach and significant control over heavy, polyphonic chordal textures.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Ballade No.1 is rated Henle level 7 of 9 — late advanced repertoire, roughly ABRSM grade 8 and above. In the RCM system it corresponds to about level 9.
You should be comfortable at Henle level 7 — meaning you can already play level 6–7 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 No.1 lasts about 7 minutes.
Ballade No.1 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 Boléro by Maurice Ravel, Prelude in C-sharp minor, No. 2 by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.