Brahms, Ballades from Op 10, Nos 1 & 2

The four ballads of the opus 10 were written by Brahms shortly after he met the Schumann family in Düsseldorf, which at that time, 1853, consisted of Robert, Clara, and seven children. On the occasion, the good-natured Schumann openly praised the talented 20-year-old. Clara was not far behind, and recorded in her diary that Brahms "seemed to have been sent to them directly by God".

Johannes and Clara

Brahms was trying to make a career, and Robert Schumann would become his mentor, although only for a short time, for Robert would die only three years later. In the meantime, Johannes and Clara will establish a communion of ideas and interests very close to a sentimental relationship, although Brahms would have liked to go further. Three months before Robert's death, in 1856, while Robert was bedridden in an asylum for the mentally ill, Brahms wrote to Clara:

My Beloved Clara,

I wish I could write to you as tenderly as I love you and tell you all the good things that I wish you. You are so infinitely dear to me, dearer than I can say. I should like to spend the whole day calling you endearing names and paying you compliments without ever being satisfied. ...If only things could go further than they are right now... If only I could live in the same city with you and my parents... write me a beautiful letter soon. Your letters are like kisses.

One would think that Brahms was definitely in love. Clara responded, we believe, as far as respect for the memory of her beloved Robert allowed. The epistolary relationship would continue until their deaths, which occurred, barely a year apart, forty years later.

Johannes Brahms, in his twenties
(1833 - 1897)

The Ballades from Opus 10

It is said that they were composed eager to show the musical world (including Robert and Clara) the progress achieved in his mastery of the piano up to that moment -remember that Clara was an extraordinary pianist. The composer is 21 years old and has only composed works in which the piano is the mainstay (solo, voice, and piano, also a trio with piano). The ballades, four short pieces that form a unit, will prepare him mentally for the approach of major works. Brahms would not take up this form, the ballad, until very late, in the third of his Six Piano Pieces of 1892, dedicated, by the way, to Clara Schumann.

The first of these four pieces, Ballad No. 1 in D minor, is inspired by a Scottish poem, "Edward", of no little dramatic content as it deals with a patricide, committed by that very Edward. It is the only piece of the set with a "programmatic" character. In keeping with the nature of the tragedy, the piece ends in the greatest stillness, but in the key of D major. It is in this key that Ballade No. 2 will come to life.

Dated 1854, the set is dedicated to his friend composer and conductor Julius Otto Grimm.

The performance is by the highly talented Chinese pianist Yuja Wang.