This salon-style Ballade reflects the popular nineteenth-century French light Romantic tradition. It is distinguished by its graceful, singing melody typical of Ketterer's accessible and charming compositions.
Focus on maintaining a smooth, singing melodic line against the accompanying broken chord figurations.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Ballade (Op.35) 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 (Op.35) lasts about 6 minutes.
Ballade (Op.35) 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 Bohêma by Eugène Ketterer, Bellone by Eugène Ketterer, 'Un ballo in maschera', opéra de Verdi, fantaisie brillante. Op. 241 by Eugène Ketterer — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.