Advice on Chopin's Ballade no 4 op 52 in F Minor

I have just finished learning Chopin's 4th Ballade, which I worked on over a period of a couple years sans teacher (this was the piece that forced me to find a teacher) and then for the past 4 months with my teacher (it sure is a lot easier to learn with a teacher I can definitely affirm!). When I started working on it I searched far and wide for advice on how to play it and found almost nothing. So I thought that as an aide to anyone who might come after me searching for "Chopin's 4th Ballade tips" I would write something up about the difficulties I had with the piece and any advice I can muster about it. Any additional tips or hints are greatly welcome and desired.

Sometimes I give technical tips like fingerings, though I shy away from doing that too much as every hand is different and what I use is often quite different from what is suggested or used by others. But, if I find a particular fingering is really helpful I'll mention it, and you can use it as just another suggestion. Sometimes though I don't give technical advice either because it isn't needed or because I honestly don't know how I do it and can't really say. Then I usually just try to focus on the aesthetics and say what the feeling should be. I am by no means a master, but in listening to many real geniuses play this piece (and many others) I can say that I know what I like and the geniuses all play it differently. Listening to Lang Lang play this vs Rubenstein is like listening to two different pieces of music. Let your own ear be your guide and the music the map.

I have broken this up into 30 sections, based on logical breaks in the music and how I learned the piece. Some of them have real names, like the Introduction or the Chorale sections, others I have just tried to give descriptive names to like "Rising and Falling Section", they may have real names I just don't know them. Also, while I am a music student, I never really learned all the minutiae of the proper names for musical bits, like sequences and motives, etc, so if I label something improperly I apologize, if you just let me know I will change it. In order ensure people know where I am making the breaks between the sections I will sometimes refer to the Mikuli edition, which can be found for free at http://imslp.org/wiki/Ballade_No.4,_Op.52_%28Chopin,_Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric%29, just search on that page for "Mikuli". There are two versions there, but they are the same one is just filtered for quality. There are page numbers on the top of each page from 37 to 52. I will refer to a location by the page number, line number and measure number. For instance the introduction ends on p. 37, line 3, measure 2, which I will also write as 37/3/2.

And now onto the actual piece!

Ballade no 4 in F minor, op 52

Introduction:

The piece begins with a 7 measure long introduction. I treated the first 1 and a half measures as an introduction to the introduction, so the piece really begins in earnest when the left hand plays its first note. The first three octave notes I play almost improvisationally, meaning their meter does not need to be strict, but they should still be even tempered with each other. The last three beats of the third, fifth and sixths measures I had a little bit of trouble with because I would slur the notes into the E naturals, they need to be kept on beat without slurring. The melody lies entirely in the octave notes hit in the RH, so let them ring out while playing the rest a bit quieter.

First Statement of Theme:

Throughout this section the left hand looks like it is doing a waltz accompaniment and it important to ensure that you don't make it sound like a waltz, with an oom-pa-pa rhythm. My teacher and I found that this really just boils down to not hitting the bottom bass note too loudly. I accomplished this mainly just by being conscious of it, but also by getting comfortable with the large leaps in the left hand, if I was not sure about which note I was going to hit until I got there, I generally hit it too hard and it sounded like a waltz. The theme is composed of a motive, which gets repeated in three different keys, features a five note beginning, which is immediately repeated verbatim, followed by what is essentially a slow trill or ornament and then a single note repeated four times and then a descending pattern of five notes. In order to evince the feeling here I found it very helpful to use hand circles on the theme, going down on the first two notes, moving to the left on the third and coming up on the last two notes. Thus the second and third notes are the loudest and the last should be hit as the finger is coming up, so it should be quite light. The fingering I use is 2-5-4-1-2, using the thumb on the B-flat, which helps force me to move my hand up. The immediate repeat I try to play a little bit different from the original statement, it can be either louder to softer, it doesn't really matter, I just make sure it is different (others may not see the necessity of this). The "trill", which is really just rocking back and forth between two notes, should start quietly and grow all the way through the third repeated note (here an E-flat). In order to add color to the piece I like to use a bit of rubato between the third and fourth repeated note here. My teacher says that it is vitally important to treat each one of the repeated notes as different. The descending pattern should also employ movement of the hand to color the notes. Ensure that the last note (here an A-flat) is hit while the hand is coming up to get a light touch here.

The five chords played in the left hand before the theme is repeated in A-flat I try to play as uniformly as possible, though often the middle one, the F-minor, is louder than the others, I think that is acceptable.

Make sure that the low A-flat played here is not too loud, I have a definite problem here making it sound, but without being too loud. The same recommendations apply here as in the first statement of the theme: use hand circle; play each one of the repeated notes differently; come up on the last note of the descending pattern.

The next line starts with the low G-flat and is another statement of the main motive, just without the initial five note repeated pattern. It leads directly into an exact restatement of the original motive in the right hand, while the left hand plays in F-major, not F-minor, but the same precautions apply here as before. The four repeated E-flats here I think can take a little bit longer than before, really hang onto them and take a bit of time before the last one as it is the last time it appears in the full theme. After the last B-flat followed by the two B-flat minor chords, make sure to hit that C and G combination softly along with the two C7 chords.

Second Statement of the Theme:

What follows is an almost exact repetition of what we just played, with only a few modifications. Again make sure not to sound too waltzy here, though I think that the first low F here can be struck a little bit louder than subsequent low notes, simply because it is starting the action off (others may differ). So the first five notes I play the same as before, but the second set is where the variation starts, as a result I play that part more rubato, for me that means slowing on the E-natural, and then going a little faster on the last four notes of the measure. You still want to end with your hand coming up on the B-flat. Note the difference in the LH on the "trill" section here as we go F-flat -> E-flat. Then the rest is just repetition. I try to play this second statement of the theme slightly differently than the first statement, although I'm not sure I could qualitatively list what the differences are. My teacher notes that how it is different is not necessarily as important as just making sure it IS different. When the theme ends there are six chords leading to the next section, I play them all in the LH, but some choose to use the RH on the top notes, there is no difficulty in doing either, just make sure to diminuendo down to the last chord.

Bass Octaves Section:

While I'm sure some people use different fingers for consecutive octaves in the LH in get a perfect legato, I have no problem using the pedal and slow movements to get a very nice legato here using 1 and 5 on all octaves. What I mean by slow movement is to make sure that the you come off the note slowly, so it doesn't sound staccato and press lightly enough that the notes don't sound harsh. This section is marked pianissimo so it should be played with light touch. This motive will come back a couple times, so there's no need to knock it out of the park here, play it lightly in the RH as well. There are two sections to this part, and when you go from the low G-flats to the E-flats an octave and a half up you want to slow down and really give a lot of attention to the F-minor chord in the RH (this occurs at p 39, line 2, measure 1, first beat). I try to play this as lightly as possible and vary the tempo quite a bit around it, i.e. I slow down leading up to it and gradually get back to speed in the couple notes after it. The last three beats of this section should be played diminuendo and the entire section should never get loud. When I initially played this part I always thought there should be a rise here leading to the next section, and I still have to hold back here when I get to this part, but that's not what should happen here and the next section should start off in the same way the "trill" sections of the last two parts did.

Variation on the Theme:

As I just said you want to start this section soft and by the end be forte, though it goes up and down in between. This starts off like in the main theme with a "trill" on D and E-flat and the F repeated four times, but the descending section is different and it ends on a high note, I like to play this pattern starting on the G-flat with 5-4-3-1 and then obviously 5 on the C-flat. The LH pattern is kind of tricky here because each set of three notes is similar to the previous one, but slightly different. I had to do a lot of LH only practice here to know what I was doing. This section is also much harder to avoid the waltz-like sound in the left hand because you are trying to crescendo, and it makes sense to start that with the first beat in each little section, but it is best to avoid that. I have a hard time avoiding it and as a result I can definitely hear and oom-pa-pa pattern here which I don't like. The actual trill I do starting with 1-2 and then trilling with 2 and 3, bringing the 1 in to hit the F on the ornament at the end. I had to struggle not to hit the A-flat when doing that ornament, as only the F and G are called for. The next two measures took a lot of RH only practice. The trick with the two measures after that (beginning with the E-flat and A-natural in the RH, 39/5/1) is to forget about holding the bottom two notes (at least at first) in the RH, and notice only the bottom note is tied. Once you get the hang of it you can try again with holding the notes properly, but it really helped me to do it without holding them at first. Then the last "trill", which is played without the LH, should grow all the way to the last repeated note. I take some time before hitting that fourth repeated G-flat to really give it some color. Then the descending pattern is the same as before as is the short interlude here.

Be sure to watch your tempo here, I have the problem and have heard many recordings where the tempo here is not the same as in the previous statements of the theme, i.e. people play it faster. This is a natural inclination to me and it is something I have heard many top level pianists do, but there is no indication in the music that it should be played any faster than the rest of the piece, so Chopin probably did not intend this section to be played faster.

Third Statement of Theme:

Not that everything before this has been exactly easy, but this is definitely where the difficulty starts to ratchet up a bit, for me at least. We again begin on a low F. I'm not sure how much I can do to elucidate how to physically play this section, it lies well beneath the hand, but it takes a lot of work to get it right. What I'd like to point out here is that even with all the extra notes lying around here and the fact that there is almost no chance to rest in the RH as almost all the notes are 16th notes and there are but a handful of rests, this really is just a restatement of the theme and that is what you want to hear. All the extra accompaniment should be played quieter than the melody. It follows the exact same structure as the previous statements, five notes, then a repeat, then a trill and four repeated notes then a descending pattern. That's all there is that you really want to evince. The rest is just background. That doesn't mean it's not important, and it certainly doesn't mean it isn't hard to play, but I just mean the melody is what you want to ring out. I broke this down into small sections of a measure or so, and then into sections that involved the whole motive in one key and played them hands separate and then hands together a lot and eventually it stuck.

One thing to note is that the short interludes between the statement of the theme in the different keys should definitely be played quieter than the rest. For instance the second half of the fourth measure from the beginning of this section (40/2/3), which descends in pairs, should diminuendo down and then crescendo up when the LH turns into octaves, starting on D-flat, so you quiet down then explode back at the beginning of the next motive. When you get to the descending octaves in the LH just remember that the RH is just doing the main motive again and the octaves aren't really that hard to do. Again I use 1-5 for everything in the LH here, and the pattern is pretty easy to follow. By the repeated four notes in the theme you should be pretty loud and then you need to immediately jump down to hit those five passing chords moving on to the next section.

Brief interlude:

This section doesn't have anything to do with any of the rest of piece, in that it doesn't share any ideas with anything else, clearly it moves us to the chorale section. I have a great deal of trouble with this section and its the first section I begin to forget if I don't play the piece for a couple of days. I broke it up into the smallest bits of just the single note followed by the chord in the RH, and then the chord followed by a single note, then built up a couple of these sets. Then I broke it up by the LH, grouped by low octave followed by three single notes, then I switched to groups of three singles notes followed by an octave, then built these up. The LH pattern is pretty easy to follow, the three notes are the same number of half steps away from each other in each group and the low octave just rises to the C before going back to the F. The difficulties in the LH here come in that the second of the three singles notes in each pattern must be played immediately after releasing that note with the RH. Played at tempo I often have problems of running my hands into each other, or the RH not fully releasing the note before trying to hit it with the LH. Also the jumps down to the octave notes can be hard to hit exactly. Finally the two hands lock up to repeat the same four beat pattern a couple times before the RH breaks free and plays on its own in a descending pattern. This pattern is exact same all the way down, so just master it once and you'll have it all the way down. When the LH joins back in it follows a similar pattern, just shifted down to provide harmony. Its easy enough to follow the pattern. This leads to the chorale with the three notes played alone in the LH (42/1/3).

Chorale:

I'll choose to begin the Chorale where Chopin has marked "a tempo" in the score (42/1/3, 3rd beat). Technically this section is not challenging at all. Make sure to play with a light touch, change the pedal often, as much as every chord, and note that the arpeggiated chord with a grace note (42/2/5) should be played in order as B-flat->E-flat->A-flat->G, that is the top note of the chord, the G, comes after the grace note of the A-flat. I had no idea about this until my teacher told me, but I'm sure its the same as elsewhere in the literature, I only point it out because I didn't know about it. At the end be sure to ritard a bit and change pedal frequently, especially for the last chord.

Rising and Falling Section:

For lack of a better name I call the next three lines or so the Rising and Falling Section, because, well, the music rises and falls. I struggle with this section and the one that follows is quite a bit, so I'm not sure how much help I can be. The rising parts aren't so bad, as the LH bows out for the most part. The falling however is a bit haphazard to my mind, it is following a scale in each case, but as to how to help actually play it I'm not sure I've found a great way just yet. I've heard this section played in various ways by many pianists. I am always tempted to play it over the top, getting quite loud, but I have decided that it sounds much better to be played understated. Don't even get too loud at the peak and definitely decrescendo on the way down each time. Also make sure to start piano as any crescendo you do have in this section shouldn't take you too loud. The first falling section is mostly played with one white note and one black note separated by a sixth, sometimes played separately, sometimes as a chord. I remember the notes here by playing attention to whether the black note is on the top or the bottom as it alternates. Remembering the pattern of black,white,white,black,black,white,white, etc for the bottom notes is a good mnemonic for me. You can also think about the top note if that's easier for you. I try to keep my hand in one position here and just rotate my wrist to play the different notes. This method is not perfect, as in 43/1/1 the C-A-natural chord is two white keys, but for whatever reason I don't have a problem with that. The second falling section, starting 34/2/2 is different, but is still all 6ths.

Interlude (Sixths):

These next few lines (starting 43/3/2) involve a lot more sixths in the RH and fairly easy work in the LH. Fingering is vitally important here and I suggest anyone working on this section to work it out at a slow tempo and come up with a good fingering. I have looked at several different editors suggestions and my own teacher's suggestions and none satisfied me. But I won't include mine here as it probably wouldn't work for anyone else, everyone's hand is different and I think you just need to figure out the best way for yourself here. The timing is a bit tricky here and the LH and RH are not always playing at the same time, but then they are again. A lot of slow hands together work is essential to really get this into the brain and hands. The LH trills I always do as the marked note, then the note above, then the marked note, then the note below and then the marked note again. The RH note that is in the middle of those trills should be hit when you hit the note below the marked note (i.e. the 4th note in the series). The long series of descending sixths (starting 43/6/2) seems harder than it is and once you get the pattern down it is pretty simple. The RH trill on the D-flat, B-flat chord I do with 1 on the D-flat and 2 on the B-flat, trilling to the C with 3 as trilling between 3 and 4 is quite hard (for me at least).

This is another section where the inclination is to go faster than the tempo of the rest of the piece, but I've found that playing at tempo is much easier, and ultimately sounds much better than attempting to rush through this section. Also don't get too loud, except maybe at the beginning of the descent in 6ths, 43/6/2, and then decrescendo all the way down. Note that most of the measures here have decrescendo marks here, indicating Chopin did not want this section to get too loud.

Interlude 2 (Fuguesque, variation on main theme):

I call this section fuguesque only because of the slow "trill" (recalled from the main theme) that is repeated in both hands. The nice part about this section is that you can use one hand position in the RH for pretty much the first four measures, until the rising part at the end of the 4th measure. In the first measure in the RH there are a series of alternating notes, low and then high and back. I like to use the thumb for all the low notes as this helps get me in the right position for everything. Several editions also suggest doing this. My teacher suggested that I slow down leading to the D-flat -> F-flat doublet then resume tempo after that (44/1/3 4th beat). I like the way it sounds and have heard several recordings with that idea used. The slur from G-flat to F-flat in the next measure took a little bit of work for me to get as it requires the 5 on the G-flat and 4 on the F-flat. I suggest playing that half measure over and over until you can get it right...though don't strain your hand of course! The next part (starting 44/3/1), which hearkens back to the main theme again has those four repeated notes on top, while the harmony changes underneath and there is a bit of accompaniment in between each of the repeated notes. What the ear needs to hear is those four notes ringing out, so emphasize them and don't accent the others. For the slow trill in the LH during the second set of repeated notes (on G-flat here, 44/3/2 2nd beat) I like to take the middle G-flats (the ones between the repeated top notes) with the LH as it fits well for the LH and keeps my RH from being too spread out as it was hurting the accent I could place on the top G-flat. However, that is just a suggestion as something that works for me. I do the same thing in the last set of repeated notes, taking the B-natural with the LH (44/4/1 2nd beat). The danger of this is losing the "trill" sensation and making it sound like a low note and a chord, how well I guard against that I don't know, but it is a drawback. Obviously you can draw out this return to the intro and diminuendo to the C-sharp.

Restatement of Introduction:

And so we head back to the beginning. The restatement is in a different key, A, and is slightly reworked, but is no harder than the introduction. It is important to return to tempo here and don't let the nostalgia of the intro make you play it slower...that's what I did at first. There is a large interval to be covered at one point in the RH with a G-sharp and C-sharp an 11th away need to be played somewhat together (44/6/1 4th beat). If your hand can reach it great! If not just arpeggiate it, but do it slowly, there's no rush here, and make sure to hold on to that C-sharp. Just before the long gliss at the end you can take your time before starting it, you don't want to make it seem rushed. The gliss itself is not too hard or too fast, just make sure you really slur the grace notes, don't let them seem like separate notes (another problem I had/have). Make sure to observe the fermata at the end of the gliss.

Fourth Statement of Theme (Counterpoint):

This section is great and, while a restatement of the theme, is much simpler and sparer than any other statement of the theme. Try to not sure the pedal here too much. It is important to keep the music going at all times here, the LH starts up its melody as soon as the RH ends and there should be no pause between them. The counterpoint ends as we return to an almost exact copy of the end of the second statement of the theme. The only difference is the order of the chords in the LH. Make sure to dwell on the trill and four repeated notes here as it is the last time we get to hear them in a pure form.

Fifth Statement of Theme (Runs):

Here is where things really start to take off. This is the first time that we get any 3 against 2 or other polyrhythms, and we start off with a couple of doozys. The first is just 4 against 3, but then we get 7 against 4 twice in a row (note that the second set of 7 starts with a rest), followed by 3 against 2 and then 5 against 3. For me at least, that's a heck of a lot to take in in four measures. I learned this by drilling the LH a lot, while the stretches can be big the fingering and the notes are pretty easy to remember and do. You need this to be rock solid to get the timing right (mine is not rock solid, but I try to go back and do LH only whenever it starts to get off). Then work the RH only and try to get the timing right, either with a metronome or by going very slowly. Then I like to mark a line from the RH to the LH any time the notes are played at the same time. For this section I copied the page and then used colored markers to draw the line between concurrent notes in the LH and RH (on the copy, of course!). I've also drawn (on another copy) marks whenever the LH plays a note in the RH staff. I should already know which note is being played in the LH, so all I need is a mark to show when the next LH note is played. You can combine these two ideas as well...I suggest using different colored markers for concurrent notes and non-concurrent LH notes. Then start playing hands together about a half measure at a time. Each of the first three "runs" is only half a measure long so this works well. Some may be able to work this section with a metronome, I am not one of those people, because I instinctively associate the ticks with the RH. One suggestion here would be to use a metronome, but use a tick to the 16th note so you play the LH every time you hear a tick and not otherwise. Then you can eventually speed it up. Once you get past 120 or so to the 16th note go back to 60 (or even 50) and make the tick match 8th notes. I usually find trying to go at the exact same rate (120 to the 16th is the same as 60 to the 8th) is tricky so I start a little slower when moving to the 8th note to the tick. One bit of fingering advice my teacher and I came up with is to use 3 to start the first run of 7 notes (46/1/2) so you go 3-4-1-2-etc. In the last run here, in the 4th measure, note that there is a B-flat played by the LH over the RH between the G-flat and E-flat at the end. That measure ends with the LH playing by itself an A-flat arpeggio, I like to take the high A-flat with the RH, both here and in the next half-measure.

So we're done with the F-minor version of the theme, now we start the A-flat version. This is almost exclusively 3 against 2 and thus should be much easier to reconcile. However, other than that, and the hands playing very close to each other at the beginning, there is not much technically different in this section from the last. The final B-flat at the end of the descending run should be played with an up motion.

Now onto the G-flat part of the theme, this is significantly different from both the original theme and the two previous motives we've had in this section. Again it is all 3 against 2 except for the trill. I have a bit of a hard time on this because of how far apart my hands are the various points. Even without blatantly staring at my hands I very often "spy" on them to make sure they are in the right position, even if only subconsciously. This is easy to do when the hands are close together and even find when they are only an octave or two apart. But here, where the LH has to hit a low D-flat followed by the RH hitting a very high F I can get a bit messed up. Careful repetition and using the fact that the RH is jumping an octave has helped me resolve this without having to look at the RH. This part ends with the RH playing alone with three eighth note rests in the LH (47/1/2).

Interlude (Unison runs):

This short section is just a couple of runs where the RH and LH are playing the same intervals in unison offset by a sixth and then a couple runs by the RH by itself. The RH is fairly easy to play, but the LH presents a slight challenge to play the unison parts. Work this part LH only until you can really play those runs well. The chromatic run ends this section. I like to hold for an extra beat on the D-flat that ends this run and starts the new run instead of just flying down and then back up immediately.

Running Bass I:

This section has long runs in the LH, all starting on D-flat, while the RH melody is similar to the chorale section. The LH fingering is easy enough, just use the thumb on any white keys. After the ascending runs there are a couple measures of D-flat arpeggios which are pretty easy if you are familiar with the arpeggios. If this section presents any problems I suggest doing what are called flexible arpeggios, which is to play an arpeggio over and over again, but instead of strictly going up a set number of octaves and then down to the starting place and then back up, etc. Try playing the arpeggios (in the LH) and choosing at random when to go up and when to go back down. If you are really comfortable with the arpeggio you should be able to change at any note, not just the tonic. Once you get used to doing that with the D-flat arpeggio the bass here should be a breeze.

Polyrhythmic Line:

This next part which is only two and a half measures long I'll claim starts at the low G-flat in the LH (47/6/2 4th beat). I knew about this line before I had even heard this piece as it was written about in an article by Douglas Hoffstadter and included in his book Metamagical Themas. (You can find a free copy of the article at:
http://books.google.com/books?id=o8jzWF7rD6oC&pg=PA183&lpg=PA183&dq=hofstadter+chopin+ballade&source=bl&ots=jPEf0vJtfp&sig=Wa7aHnlfqhitN1X5yvhox4yz12A&hl=en&ei=6rxBTcuSB8PogAfx4di0AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false, The Ballade part is on p 183) This line is 3 against 2, but, at the start of the measure you can see the melody follows a pattern of 4 in the RH. The pattern is the same throughout the line, a high note followed by a low note, then a middle note, then a low note. So the actual melody line, what the ear should hear, is every fourth note, thus it moves with respect to the groups of three. This makes playing it very hard. There are several places in the Coda where there are groups of four masked in triplets, but there you don't have to worry about the 3 against 2.

So here the difficulty is not so much in playing the two hands together, but is in evincing the melody by accenting the right beats, while still playing in time. It can be quite tricky. I suggest starting out learning this line by playing just the melody notes and really get that melody stuck in your head so you know what to listen for when playing. What I did was to learn each hand separately, then put them together without worrying about any accents. Once I could do that competently I went back to RH only and played each group of four with a VERY strong accent on the first note and the others played as softly as possible at a slow tempo. As I worked up the tempo the difference between accent and soft became less pronounced, but the melody was still clearly heard over the accompaniment. Then I added in the LH, but I changed the rhythm a bit, playing small groups to ensure the 3 against 2 was still in place. Then I gradually started playing in the right rhythm, but still at a slow tempo. I had to keep going back to RH only to get the pattern in my head. For me I really need something to latch onto, something to listen for, and if I can hear that one thing properly everything else falls into place. Here it is the pattern of 4: high, low, mid, low; or, in terms of loudness, loud, soft, soft, soft. Somewhere around here I noticed that since I was using the 5 for all the melody notes I could just rotate my wrist quickly towards the 5 when playing it and that helped reinforce both the rhythm and make the melody louder than the backing. And again sometimes go back to just playing the melody without the other notes in between or the LH at all. It is very helpful to reinforce the melody by playing it by itself without the middle accompaniment notes.

It is clearly a hard line to learn, or at least it was for me, and I still have to go back to it often to make sure that I am playing it correctly. A major problem for me is the LH and RH getting off-track, so the melody is still there and the bass is being played in the right order, but the timing is off. This is especially true as we move into the second measure where the LH arpeggio changes to starting on the A-flat. When I start to get off track I always go back to playing it in the halting groups to make sure I know which RH note goes with which LH note. Even though this is a completely different way of playing it (I would never play it like that in the piece) it is enough to reinforce what I should be playing and so I can play it normally much better even after just a few times through.

When I first got this right I wrote at the top of the page of music that "The key to playing this is to divorce the left and right hands, and then divorce the melody from the right hand. Start the LH then ignore it, it should go on as planned without you paying attention to it. Listen to the first few notes of the RH to ensure you are playing in time then ignore all the other notes than the melody." That's how I do it, others may be able to pay attention to every detail...I hope you are among those people.

Running Bass II:

Flying out of that wonderful line we move on to a second version of the running bass section we just left. The LH runs are almost exactly the same for the first three measures. The RH is simple enough to play here, aside from the couple of single notes which require a jump. The pattern here in the RH is pairs of chords, with the same top note, and usually a passing single note between one pair and the next. It is absolutely necessary here to hold the second chord in each pair ass long as you can. This is getting to the emotional climax of the piece and from here until the 'series of chords' that leads into the coda you should be playing with as much feeling as you possibly can. The arpeggiated chord and the four chords that follow it are the apex of this section. I play those chords with 2 on the E-flat for all four chords.

We stick with the pairs of chords here and I do my best to try to make sure each pair is struck similarly to each other, while being distinct from the other pairs. This is accomplished with varying dynamics and making sure to play the first chord in the pair with an up motion and the second one with a down motion, lifting up and then falling back down. In short, just make sure your hand comes up between the first and second chord in each pair. The LH here is not too difficult, once you see the pattern of the triplets generally goes up, down, down, i.e. you go up for three notes, then hit a high note and come down for three, then hit another high note and come down for three again. The first one here, starting on the C-flat (48/4/1), does not follow this convention, but for the next four measures all the rest do. There are some large stretches in the LH as well, particularly going from the D-flat to F-flat a 10th away. Don't worry about trying to make that legato. I'll say this section ends at the G-flat-D-flat-G-flat chord in the RH (49/1/2 3rd beat). Notice that the bass pattern changes just before this and can easily be played in one hand position. The only thing to note here is that the pattern goes 2-3-3 here, make sure to play the first 2 notes in proper time as there is a little 3 against 2 here. You should diminuendo into the G-flat chord, we're going to need to rise for the next couple of lines and you want to start low.

Final Rise:

As it is hard for me to do let me mention up front that there is a four measure crescendo in place here, so you want to start quiet and build to a peak at the D-flat chord four measures up. So grow in volume, but do it slowly. I often quiet down only to be back to full volume a measure in, gotta get better at that. The bass here, with one exception follows the same 2-3-3 pattern as before and, aside from the first 2 sets of 2-3-3 it is always ascending, starting low for each new pattern. I found the LH fingerings to be quite difficult at first, as all the notes are right next to each other and in some cases chromatic. I like to have some space in the LH, but none is allowed here. One way to remember the notes is just to look at the pattern of the first note in each set of 2-3-3, notice that it is always rising, usually by a half or whole step. In the walking up parts just make sure you always use 3-2-1 on E-flat -> E-natural -> F and the rest of the fingering will work itself out. The RH chords are not terribly difficult, though matching them up with the LH took some work for me.

Climax: Unison Arpeggios:

We reach our climax finally and it is a couple of beautiful arpeggios played in unison between the hands. They're not exactly in unison, as the two hands play different notes, but they ascend and descend at the same times. The notes are not hard to remember. For the repeated Fs you want to play them with 1 then 5 or 5 then 1 depending on which hand you're playing and whether you're ascending or descending. A lot of work around these turns was necessary for me, so playing the note before and after the repeated Fs over and over again helped. I also broke up this section into different groups, playing each group followed by a short rest and then the next group. That is, I separated it into groups of 3 or 4 or 6 or whatever and then played that many notes, waited a second, then played the next, etc. Make special effort to emphasize the top and bottom notes in each arpeggio as that's what you want the listener to hear. There are several world class pianists (including Rubenstein) whose version of this Ballade I hate to listen to simply because they don't accent the tops of these arpeggios. Without the accent at the top and bottom they are formless.

Note that, although they are marked as dotted 16th notes followed by a 32nd note, the first two notes at the bottom of each arpeggio are played as if its a triplet missing the middle note. So the last note in the RH triplet should be played with the "32nd note" in the LH. As far as I know everyone performs it this way, though it would be almost impossible to distinguish at full tempo anyway, its not worth losing any sleep over. Note this is true everywhere we see this pattern, which is again in the next section and then in the coda as well.

Hold the last chord for an extra beat before beginning the unison rises.

Unison Rises and Final Chords:

These are true unison rises as the two hands play the same things an octave apart. In the RH I use my thumb on the B, but the thumb on the C is also a valid option. In the LH I use my 4 on the F. I practice this in a similar way to the unison arpeggios, which is to say I separate the notes into groups of 3 or 4, etc, and play those consecutively, with a small gap in between. Then I move where the groups start, starting on the second note of each group and playing all the way up, etc. This method is explained more fully when covering the last line of the coda.

The series of chords at the end of the main section gave me a bit of trouble to learn. There does not seem to be much of a pattern, which made it hard for me to remember. The second set is a bit easier, though much longer, because the LH is just octaves. It is not too difficult to play, just a bit hard to learn. Playing the chords an octave up or an octave down sometimes helps me learn random groups of chords. BTW if there is method to this series of chords I'd love to know it. Make sure to crescendo all the way to the last chord. Wait a bit, but not too long to hit those 3 single notes followed by the 3 chords, then hold for the fermata, giving a good in and out breath (if you've gotten this far you both deserve and need a breath) before softly tapping those final chords.

Coda:

Opening:

How in the world Chopin ever conceived of these lines I have no idea. They are beautiful, if forceful, and, to me at least, completely random. There is little melody to latch onto here, just a couple of hooks, in the two note slurs leading to a high D-flat and then a descending pattern. As a result it took a bit for me to figure out what was going on and thus how to play it. It is all in triplets (with two exceptions) so getting the hands together is not too hard. There is one brief second of 3 against 2 in the second half of the first measure (repeated in the 3rd measure) and a dotted 16th followed by a 32nd note, which can either be played as written (this time I actually prefer to play it as written as it gives a sense of unevenness and chaos) or as if the RH were actually written as a triplet. My teacher tried to have me play it as a triplet, but as I said I prefer it as written. On the plus side, as far as the chaos is concerned, it is only 2 measures and then the exact repeat one octave up.

Ascending Thirds:

The next two measures are covered here. The RH is almost exclusively thirds rising (somewhat) chromatically. A lot of work need to be put into the fingering choices here and I have several places where I use 1-5 to hit a triplet, which I would almost never do anywhere else. The LH follows a pattern every 9 notes (or three sets of triplets) that is a bit difficult to describe, but is clearly visible upon inspection. I lock onto that pattern while playing and leave my RH to play from memory and without close inspection. When you get to the 4th set of triplets in the second measure in the RH (the C,E triplet) I like use 1,3 -> 2,4 -> 1,3 -> 1,2 -> 1,3, I find this easier than what is found in most editions that I have looked at.

Descending Thirds:

Here we do not slavishly use thirds, but they are still quite prevalent. For the first one and a half measures the LH pattern is the same as before, but the leaps are bigger. Careful work should be done to hit those leaps with precision. As far as the RH I find that careful rotation of the hand back and forth can greatly help out here, especially when you want to get it up to speed. Then we finally get a respite, the first 8th note of the coda so far in the RH. The LH then goes into a descending pattern, with each triplet starting lower than the previous one and each following a pattern of high, low, medium (or looked at across triplets we can see three ascending notes followed by a leap down). I use only 1, 2 and 3 on these notes. The RH here is written as dotted 16th notes followed by a 32nd note, but as mentioned earlier you should treat these as triplets with the middle note missing. So the they should be played with LH note concurrently (you're welcome to try playing it as written, but I doubt it would sound any different at tempo). I play each pair as 1,5 -> 1,2, maybe once using 1,3 for the second note in the pair. When you reach the bottom of this pattern, which I'll designate as the C chord (51/3/1 last beat), we move on to the next section

Interlude (Interesting Bass):

These three measures don't have anything really defining about them other than the erratic bass line. The RH is fairly easy, simple chords played with plenty of time between each other. On the third beat of the first full measure (51/3/2) there is a single E-natural played by the RH followed by an F on the next beat and then a chord on the next beat. I play the E, F and the G of the chord with my thumb, my teacher suggested 2 on the E, then 1 on the F and G, but 1,2,1 is also an option. I just find riding in on the thumb to be the easiest thing to do here. As for the LH there is no discernible pattern here that I can see, so the only real solution is just to play it a lot hands separate to get used to the run of notes. Starting the second full measure (51/4/1) on the low B-flat I use 4-3-2, but after that I use 3-2-1 for each of the other triplets in this measure. At the end of the 3rd measure (51/4/2) there is a 5 note descending pattern, I use 1-2-3-4-5 on it, though I admit that the 4-5 causes me some problems sometimes. You can also use 1-2-1-2-3 then the 1 on the A-flat.

Rising and Falling Section II:

Probably the best advice my teacher gave me, as far as technical ideas go, in this piece was for this section. There are 4 measures here, though the second two are an almost exact repeat of the first two, with the 4th being an octave higher than the 2nd. The first (and third) measure is written out as triplets in the RH and a dotted 16th plus a 32nd note in the LH, but we play it as if it is two triplets. Each RH triplet is written as a 2 note chord, followed by a single note, then another 2 note chord. And the LH is basically just single notes (except for the first beat). What my teacher had me do and which is brilliant, is to take the middle single note of the RH triplet and play it with the LH. This means the LH is now playing a triplet while the RH is playing only the first and third note of each triplet. But it also means the LH is just playing E-flat -> G-flat -> E-flat, and then A-natural -> C -> A-natural each covering an octave and rising on each triplet. It makes this part very easy to play, much easier than the way it is written. Since there are only two patterns, an E-flat and an A-natural pattern, that are repeated over 3 octaves it is fairly easy to play in this way as a series of two chord slurs in the RH and a bass that is just a series of three rising notes covering an octave.

Descending is just a series of octaves in the LH, pausing for a bit on the G and then C. As for the RH I play the starting chord as 1,2,3,5 then use 4 on the F and 3 on the G-flat then 1,2,5 on the B-flat chord. You can then keep the 2 in place on the F for the B-flat minor chord. Then slide the 2 down to E-natural for the C7 chord, using 4 on the B-flat. I find using this fingering helps me remember the chords as I can just follow where the 2 is.

Then you just repeat the rising section and then move the falling section up one octave.

Final Rise II:

The final chord from the last section should be hit forte, but then get quiet quickly. As in the Final Rise in the main part of the piece we have four measures to crescendo to a peak so you need to get quiet here at the beginning and crescendo gradually over the four measures. We're back to using 3 against 2 here. Note that there is a definite pattern here, with each measure close to being a repeat of the one before, sometimes moved up by an octave. The last three measures have the same exact bass line and the RH is the same except for the first and last notes. The first measure has mostly the same RH line, but the bass is slightly different. Notice that the last note two notes in the RH pattern are A-flat -> G when the pattern rises by an octave in the next measure, but G -> F when the pattern repeats in the same octave between measures 2 and 3. It also ends on G -> F. That's what I use to help me remember whether to keep going up or go back down. When I listen to others play this piece it seems like most of the pattern is fairly muted and what you hear accented are the final two notes of the pattern. I try to achieve this by hitting the penultimate note with an up motion and then come down on the final note.

Descending with Chords:

This is two measures of descending single notes in the RH with four chords per measure in the LH. There is nothing technically hard about these lines, the only sticking point for me is remembering to hit the E-naturals in the first measure and not in the second.

Descending in Unison:

After the last section there is a brief ascending F-minor arpeggio in the RH before we start descending in unison. As we descend we are just tracing out an F-minor chord in different inversions and with one extra note thrown in for each inversion. The extra note is always one step above the top note in the inversion and is the one each pattern starts on. Thus the F-minor inversion I pattern starts on D-flat because that is one step above the C which is the high note in that inversion. Once you get the patterns down the way to build up speed here is to use the method I first mentioned in the Unison Rises and Final Chords section. This method was suggested to me by Josh Wright, a concert pianist, frequent uploader to Youtube of helpful lessons (his Youtube username is joshwrightpiano look for his stuff there) and overall great guy. Anyway the basics of the method is to break up passages like this into blocks of notes. We'll start with blocks of 4 notes. Then you play in a pattern of long-short-short-short. And play the whole line all the way to the bottom. Play that several times then play it as short-long-short-short, and then short-short-long-short, then short-short-short-long. Play each of those many times. Then you can switch to patterns of 3 and 5 and 6 and 7, etc. Do all the variations of where the long note comes in during the pattern. Once you get used to that try to play the shorts as fast as you possibly can and then give a good rest on the long, and then play the next set of shorts as fast as you can. I think of it as exploding and reloading. This will really build up the speed. This method is applicable to several parts of the piece, most notably the unison passages, but really anywhere where both hands are playing on every beat simultaneously, like the beginning of the coda and the thirds section.

Final Chords:

We've finally reached these final chords, play them for all you're worth...if you have any energy left at this point! And that's it!



Recap:

So that's the whole piece. Some things you might want to think about while playing follow. Try to keep the tempo as constant as possible throughout, with the coda often being played a little bit faster than the rest of the piece. Most versions released by professionals are around 11 minutes, plus or minus about a minute. The tempo is around 116 to the eighth note for everything until the coda, then a little bit faster for the coda. It is tempting to speed up in the Third and Fifth Statements of the Theme sections but resist that urge if possible. This is a episodic piece, as you can see I've split it in 30 distinct sections, so try to make each section distinct, while still keeping the uniformity of the tempo. Rubato can be used a lot in this piece, and I have marked many places to vary the tempo slightly, but it only works if the rest of the piece is played at a consistent tempo. It doesn't have to be a march, but it should be consistent. Dynamics are very important to the piece and there are long sections of crescendo, but also lots of sections where the volume goes up and down a couple times in a measure. It is hard to control everything at once, but if you keep it in your mind you should be able to do it. I sometimes think of controlling this piece as being like trying to control a car going 100 miles an hour on an icy road, you really need to be alert to everything at once and one slight mistake can mess everything up. Fortunately if you mess up here, its pretty easy to get back on track, whereas in the car... Best of luck to anyone trying this piece, it is a wonderful piece, maybe my favorite solo piano piece and is well worth learning...I hope this article can give some aide to you.