George Templeton Strong’s Ballade is a bold, highly virtuosic work written in a grand, late-Romantic American-European style. It demonstrates significant structural ambition and a preference for expansive dynamic ranges.
Developing the physical endurance required for the powerful chordal passages is the main hurdle.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Ballade No.2 (Op.34) is rated Henle level 7 of 9 — late advanced repertoire, roughly ABRSM grade 8 and above.
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.2 (Op.34) lasts about 8 minutes.
Ballade No.2 (Op.34) 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 No.1 by George Templeton Strong, Ballade No.2 by Franz Liszt, Bach- Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (Transcription) by Louis Brassin — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.