St. Clair's second ballade utilizes a highly chromatic idiom rooted in post-Romantic aesthetics. The piece is notable for its deliberate, episodic structure and deep emotional weight.
The primary challenge lies in the execution of complex voicing within the large chordal passages.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Ballade No.2 is rated Henle level 5 of 9 — late intermediate repertoire, roughly ABRSM grades 6–7. In the RCM system it corresponds to about level 7.
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 No.2 lasts about 7 minutes.
Ballade No.2 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 Richard St. Clair, Ballade No.1 for piano by Richard St. Clair, Ballade No.2 for Piano by Richard St. Clair — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.