Nathan Shirley is a contemporary composer known for his accessible yet emotionally poignant solo piano works. This Ballade emphasizes modern harmonic color and a deep, improvisatory sense of narrative development.
The student must navigate the rich, multi-layered textures to ensure the melody remains prominent.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Ballade 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 lasts about 5 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 No.1 by Nathan Shirley, Ballade No.3 by Nathan Shirley, Ballade in E minor, JB 2:43 by Bedřich Smetana — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.