Chopin, Ballade No 3, in A flat major

Although Chopin never confirmed the source from which he took inspiration for his four ballades, it is customary to affirm that they obey the admiration he had for the work of his friend and Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz, exiled like him in the Paris of the thirties. An enthusiastic supporter of this conjecture was Robert Schumann (dedicatee of Ballade No. 2, with no great rapture on Chopin's part, it must be said). Schumann found Mickiewicz inspirational poems for each of the ballads. For No. 3, he claimed he was inspired by the poem Undine, which tells the tragic story of a water sprite, an undine, who falls in love with a mortal.

The fact is that Chopin never had any interest in music that contained characters or told stories. But neither did he reject these suggestions outright. He simply ignored them, as flippant, perhaps. 
(As for the magical character, he would reappear in one of Ravel's most celebrated compositions in the next century, as the protagonist of the first movement of his 1908 solo piano suite Gaspard de la Nuit).

Teaching wealthy ladies
The third ballade was composed during the years 1840-41, when Chopin had been in Paris for almost ten years. The early days had not been easy. But everything changed after he met the very wealthy Rothschild family, of Jewish origin, through whom Chopin gained access to the noble and aristocratic circles of Paris. The ladies asked him for lessons. The Baroness de Rothschild was the first to enroll. Also Miss Pauline de Noailles, daughter of a prince. Ballade No. 3 is dedicated to her.

Ballade No. 3 in A flat major, opus 47
Less turbulent than the two previous ballads, the third ballad begins with a long introduction that resembles, according to scholars, a conversation, a dialogue between two lovers. It is not until minute 02:11 that the first theme appears, charming and elegant. The seven-minute piece concludes with an abbreviated version of the second theme (03:58), virtuosic but not triumphant, because the infatuation of the undine, following Schumann, has turned out to be more bitter than happy.

The performance, superb, is by the Polish maestro Krystian Zimerman.