This is a minor-Romantic salon piece by the composer E. Sperati. It follows the traditional 19th-century ballade aesthetic with a focus on melodic narrative.
The primary challenge is shaping a long, lyrical melodic line while maintaining a consistent tempo throughout the rubato sections.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Ballade is rated Henle level 4 of 9 — intermediate repertoire, roughly ABRSM grades 5–6. In the RCM system it corresponds to about level 5.
You should be comfortable at Henle level 4 — meaning you can already play level 3–4 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 3 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 'O sole mio by Eduardo Di Capua, Belle of the Ball by Leroy Anderson, Broadway Melody by Nacio Herb Brown — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.