Chopin's Ballades and the Dialectic: Analysis in Historical Perspective

Author(s): John Rink

Source: Music Analysis, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Mar., 1994), pp. 99-115
Published by: Wiley
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 CRITICAL FORUM

JOHN RINK

CHOPIN'S BALLADES AND THE DIALECTIC:

ANALYSIS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

'Chopin at the supreme summit of his art' (Huneker 1900: 163), 'the acme of his
power as an artist' (Niecks 1888: 268), 'the crown of Chopin's work' (Abraham
1939: 106), 'one of Chopin's supreme achievements' (Samson 1985: 187): each of
these comments bears witness to the enthusiastic critical response to Chopin's
Ballades throughout the past 150 years.* Structurally complex and highly
expressive, the four masterpieces have also attracted a wide range of analytical
approaches during this time. Studying these disparate analyses - which is the
purpose of this article - allows one not only to determine how the four works have
been variously understood in the literature, but also to draw conclusions about
how analysis has evolved as a discipline since the Ballades were written.'
The ballad genre itself had experienced a complicated evolution before
Chopin's Op. 23 was published in 1836 (the other three - Opp. 38, 47 and 52 -
dating from 1840, 1841 and 1843 respectively), and authors such as Wieslaw
Lisecki (1990), Anselm Gerhard (1991) and James Parakilas (1992) have
attempted to place the four Ballades in a number of historical contexts, as if
deriving from different dance, literary, operatic or folk traditions. These efforts
have met with varying degrees of success, and here it suffices to note a general
description of the ballad tradition as a background to studying Chopin's unique
conception of the genre. Among the ballad's chief characteristics were a 'bold,

* A French translation of an earlier version of this article appeared in Analyse musicale, No. 27 (1992); a Polish
translation will be published in Rocznik Chopinowski, Vol. 21 (1994).

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 CRITICAL FORUM

sensational, dramatic effect' achieved through 'purposeful starkness and

abruptness', a 'rigid' narrative economy and 'a repertory of rhetorical
devices ... employed for prolonging highly charged moments in the story and
thus thickening the emotional atmosphere'. The latter included abrupt transitions,
'crisp, poignant dialogue' and 'incremental repetition', whereby 'a phrase or stanza
is repeated several times with a slight but significant substitution at the same
critical point. Suspense accumulates with each substitution, until at last the final
and revelatory substitution bursts the pattern, achieving a climax and with it a
release of powerful tensions' (Friedman 1986: 116).
That all these characteristics apply with such accuracy to Chopin's Ballades
possibly explains the persistent reference to narrative content and extramusical
programmes in the analytical literature on these works, particularly - but not
exclusively - in studies from the nineteenth century, when, in Jim Samson's words,
the 'critic was less interested in formulating theories than in conveying his
experience of a work directly to his readers, ... [using] the metaphor... [as] his
principal tool. In the case of the ballades the temptation was to allow the genre
title to make even more specific the customary references to non-musical
designates' (1992a: 34). Later authors played down the 'literary and programmatic
associations' of Chopin's extended works 'in favour of their purely musical values,
and in particular the strength and stability of their structures', responding to an
early twentieth-century tendency 'to de-contextualise the musical work, to let it
make its own statement, to assign it a monadic character whose meaning might be
revealed only through analysis'. In short, 'the "wordless narratives" of Chopin's
age have become today's "triumphs of architecture"' (: 37, 38).
The last two decades or so have witnessed a third phase in the analytical
reception of the Ballades, following on from the subjective studies of the late
1800s and the ostensibly more objective, structuralist ones of this century. Indeed,
recent analytical writing reveals a synthesis of the two earlier stages, whereby
emotion and meaning are defined not simply with regard to inferred
programmatic/poetic content or supposedly innate, autonomous musical logic, but
in a comparatively rigorous, theoretically grounded hermeneutics linking musical
phenomena to particular expressive effects. This 'reconciliatory' critical approach
- which in part reflects the concerns of the 'new musicology' in general, and which
will be well-known to readers of this journal from many contexts other than
Chopin's music - seeks

the locus of expression in a musical composition ... neither in its wider surfaces
nor in its more detailed motivic contours, but in its comprehensive design,
which includes all the sonic elements and relates them to one another in a
significant temporal structure. In other words, extrageneric meaning can be
explained only in terms of congeneric [meaning]. If verbalization of true
content - the specific expression uniquely embodied in a work - is possible at
all, it must depend on close structural analysis (Cone 1982: 235).

The hermeneutics alluded to here shapes not only Cone's study of Op.52
(discussed below) but also other recent analyses of the Ballades which attempt
through theory to legitimise or universalise the listener's subjective reactions to
the music. It thus completes the quasi-dialectical succession alluded to above,
from the 'literary' critical discourse of Schumann and other nineteenth-century
writers, through the structural diagrams of Leichtentritt, Schenker et al., and the

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 CRITICAL FORUM

'technical' prose of others in this century, to the theoretically enlightened - in

some cases, theoretically blighted - analyses of expression and meaning in recent
years (many of which still invoke a 'structuralist ideal', notwithstanding the
influence of post-structuralism on current critical thought).2 This succession can
clearly be seen by surveying the principal analyses of the Ballades in roughly
chronological order and by noting the conspicuous pattern that emerges from such
a study.
Compared with much of his writing, Schumann's remarks on the Ballades are
almost laconic: he describes Chopin's Op.23 as 'one of his wildest and most
unusual compositions' and Op.38 as 'no less fantastic and brilliant', although
artistically inferior to the former. Of the third Ballade ('which is remarkably
different in form and character from the earlier two') he simply comments that 'its
poetical atmosphere does not lend itself to further analysis' (1888: iii, 64-5, 128).
Reluctance to engage with a 'poetical' work like this is palpable elsewhere during
this first phase of critical response to the four compositions, as for instance in
Frederick Niecks's comment (1888: ii, 269-70) that Op.47's 'fine gradations' and
'iridescence of feeling ... mock at verbal definition', and in James Huneker's
otherwise thorough study of these 'Fairy Dramas', which, he writes (coupling
'technical' vocabulary with 'woolly romanticizing' [Alan Rawsthorne's phrase
(1966: 49)]), are 'not loosely-jointed, but compact structures glowing with genius
and presenting definite unity of form and expression'. For instance, Op.23 - 'the
Odyssey of Chopin's soul' - is a 'logical, well-knit and largely planned'
composition possessing an 'organic unity'; 'that Chopin had a programme, a
definite one, there can be no doubt'. For Huneker, Op.38 likewise 'follows a
hidden story', while 'the episodes of [Op.47] are so attenuated of any grosser
elements that none but psychical meanings should be read into them'. In Op.52
'the narrative tone is missing after the first page, a rather moody and melancholic
pondering usurping its place. It is the mood of a man who examines with morbid,
curious insistence the malady that is devouring his soul' (1900: 155-63). However
overblown these lines sound today, they are tame compared with Edward Perry's
extravagant 'descriptive analyses', which (like Zdzistaw Jachimecki's study of
Op.38 [1930: 132-3]) presumptuously confer programmatic status on the ballads
of Adam Mickiewicz (the putative inspiration of at least Op.38 - as Schumann's
account would have it - if not of all four Ballades) and regard Chopin's
compositions as little more than musical settings of the ballads.
Although no less literary in style, Niecks's analysis of the Ballades is rather
more evocative, possibly on account of his unusually intimate understanding of
Chopin's music. He writes that Op.23 'is all over quivering with intensest feeling,
full of sighs, sobs, groans, and passionate ebullitions'; the controversial E? in b.7
sounds the 'emotional key-note of the whole poem. It is a questioning thought
that, like a sudden pain, shoots through mind and body'. This 'simple but pathetic
tale' increases in agitation, 'till at last the whole being is moved to its very depths'.
Whereas Op.47 lacks the 'emotional intensity' and 'emotional tumultuousness' of
the other Ballades, suffused instead with a 'most exquisite elegance' and a 'quiver
of excitement', in Op.52 'the emotional key-note ... is longing sadness', which is
'well preserved throughout' (1888: ii, 268-70).
Analytical attention in Hugo Leichtentritt's pioneering study of Chopin's works
(Leichtentritt 1922) is focused not on emotional key-notes but on structural
parameters such as form, harmony, phrase, rhythm, metre and motive. Stressing
the uniqueness of the Ballade genre, which, he says, combines elements of the

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 CRITICAL FORUM

Lied, rondo, sonata and variation set, Leichtentritt devises numerous diagrams of
harmonic and phrase structures (the latter parsed according to Riemannian
principles), rebarring passages to reveal hidden metrical complexities and phrase
overlappings (see Ex. 1) and often addressing related performance issues.
Ex. 1 Analysis of Op. 38, bs 15ff. and 34ff. (Leichtentritt 1922: 13)

r m [ - e ,i l i lDmr+.I I loIr C3I I lll + I'- I' w . L, g I I z I l I I I I~

A lax -- I - I

I I I- -. . I6 fi f
IFIM II ..lf I I l I V,.n. L , I I I I 1 1 I

A- [34]

""' i B = ' " tO -' '

II L, L- -- - k

Although countless details of the analysis are suspect, particularly in the wake of
Schenkerian theory (Schenker himself savaged Leichtentritt's work in the second
Meisterwerk yearbook), this ground-breaking study marks the start of
the second ('antithetical') phase in Chopin analysis described above - that of
rigour, ostensible objectivity and 'autonomous' structural logic. It also
demonstrates with considerable ingenuity (e.g. the insightful 'distributional
analysis' of Op.52, bs 8-22, reproduced in Ex. 2) the 'unity of form' and 'compact
structures' in Chopin's music to which Huneker could only allude. Nevertheless, it

Ex. 2 Analysis of Op. 52, bs 7ff. (Leichtentritt 1922: 33)

b) 1 3 4

i OP 1 fm- 1J F 1 F fw 'yl I F I 7 . . . .. i- 19
1 2 -1 o 'T 4

34

,3 I I I I
1 2 34

a# ,rt.L-- I l I opl H | OP I ! I I I I l
I+ bi+, IIQIb?l I I I r I I Ilm11 F .n
%.I, "IJI L I I I I I I I l l I ' J i 'J L l I IA

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 CRITICAL FORUM

is undeniable that Schenker's middleground graph in Fig. 153/1 of Free

Composition shows with far greater clarity and cogency than Leichtentritt's static
formal synopses a principal source of unity in the first Ballade (see Ex. 3). This
dynamic, implicitly temporal analysis reveals 'a very extended three-part form,

Ex. 3 Op. 23, middleground structure: Fig. 153/1 in Schenker (1979)

58 63 69 94 124 126 138 190 194 208

5 (n n) 5 4 3 2 1

VI ( ) (p.t. )
A- -B- -A2

boldly derived from a neighboring note, yet unfolding in a single broad sweep'
(Schenker 1979: ?310).
Apart from this comprehensive structural diagram, Schenker's treatment of the
Ballades is restricted to brief passages (see Figs. 64 and 119/10 in Free Com-
position), but his theoretical framework has of course influenced numerous
full-scale studies by many authors. Franz Eibner, for example, posits that 'organic'
form in Chopin's music derives from contrapuntal principles, that the bass has
linear direction and is not merely a harmonic foundation, and that anomalies
result when form is defined in thematic terms only. Other Schenker-inspired
writers have puzzled over the problematic second Ballade, in which Schenker's
notion of unified tonal structure is seriously undermined by an F major/A minor
tonal polarity. Theories of monotonality, interlocking tonal structures, 'directional
tonality' (in which two tonics operate in succession) and the 'two-key scheme' (in
which two tonics function simultaneously - also known as 'tonal pairing' or the
'double-tonic complex') have been variously applied to Op. 38 by Harald Krebs,
William Kinderman, Wai-Ling Cheong, Samson and others. Krebs provides a
graphic reduction fundamentally different from those of Schenker, demonstrating
two different, overlapping I-V-I structural progressions related by a third, each of
which 'supports its own Kopfton' (1981: 13): C as 3 of F major at the beginning,
and E as 5 of A minor at the end. In contrast Kinderman treats the opening F
major as a 'secondary tonality', as 'LVI' of A minor, which, although eventually
defined as the tonic, is not 'an initial point of orientation' but 'the goal of a
directional process' (1988: 59). This interpretation differs in essence from the
structure proposed by Samson ('it can only be explained as a two-key scheme'
[1992a: 54]) and by Cheong, whose study (which aims 'to evaluate the Ballade on
the basis of its own inner compositional logic' [1988: 52]) concludes with the
following penetrating insight on the two-key scheme's status in nineteenth-century
repertoire:

As Chopin's Op.38 comes to end [sic] in a minor key that lies a major third

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above the original tonic, an effect of being left hanging is created. It is

important to realize that such an effect is only achievable if it is heard against a
monotonal background... . In short, the avoidance of monotonality is but a
negative way of confirming it (: 61).

Although analysing Op.38 in terms of directional tonality, Kevin Korsyn takes

an otherwise novel approach to the Ballade, comparing it with Brahms's Op.88
and 'proposing a critical paradigm for explaining musical intertextuality...
adapted from contemporary literary criticism'. Korsyn invokes Harold Bloom's
hypothesis that 'there are no texts, only relationships between texts' to show that
in Op.88 Brahms employs 'tessera', that is, he 'antithetically "completes" his
precursor Chopin'. Whereas Chopin's Op.38 has 'two beginnings, which converge
into one ending', the 'two beginnings' of Brahms's Op.88 lead to 'two endings,
since the ending can be heard in two different ways' (1989).
It would be invidious to compare Korsyn's sophisticated adaptation of critical
theory with Gerald Abraham's rather outmoded dissections of the Ballades in
terms of sonata form - i.e. his 'static' schematic outlines for Op.47 and Op.52 and
his censorious assessments of formal procedures in all four works. Although the
composer 'blunders upon Eb' too long before the recapitulation in the first Ballade,
Op.23 does show 'signs that Chopin was beginning to understand something of
the real essence of sonata-form'; nevertheless, 'in contriving a dramatically
satisfactory form' for the second Ballade 'he was unable to avoid battering the
purely musical form rather badly and the marks of his tinkering remain visible'
(Abraham 1939: 55-7). Op.47's development 'includes one striking symptom of
Chopin's new attitude to thematic work' - the juxtaposition of themes A and B in
a large tension-building sequence - while Op.52 'is perhaps most easily explained
as a masterly deformation of sonata form' (: 108) comprising introduction (bs 1-
7); first subject (8-80); second subject (80-99); development (100-28); reprise of
introduction, ending in cadenza (129-34); first subject reprise (135-68); second
subject reprise ('extended and treated with more breadth' - 169-90);
'improvisatory transition' (191-210); and coda.
Formal outlines like this occur in much of the literature on the Ballades, as in
Edward Zolas's so-called 'structural and interpretive analysis', which, despite its
stated goals, is essentially a blow-by-blow description of the four works cursorily
addressing a few performance-related aspects (for instance, pedalling, slurring,
dynamics and legato). Little of substance is offered: about Op.52's cadenza Zolas
writes, 'here the artist sighs, perhaps in relief, perhaps in longing, and that sigh
must die away to scarcely a whisper before the principle [sic] theme returns, piano,
in measure 135' (1983: 81). In contrast Giinther Wagner questions whether form
is the most appropriate basis on which to analyse Op.23, defining criteria other
than harmonic, rhythmic and formal properties in an effort to achieve a more
rounded analysis (although, surprisingly, he too pigeonholes the work as an
ostensible sonata form).
Form is an important premise in both of Samson's studies of the Ballades,3
which regard sonata procedures in all four works as 'the essential reference point'
(1992a: 45), 'as a controlling principle, albeit one which has been reinterpreted'
(: 62). Casting aspersions on formal synopses like Abraham's, which depict
musical structures as 'entirely one-dimensional..., where all components are
treated rather like static entities on a single level of formal significance', Samson
stresses the 'time-dependency of musical structures, their "unfolding" through

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progressive and recessive textures on several levels', and 'the hierarchies, the
embedded or "nested" structures, which lie at the heart of tonal music' (: 68).
Verbal commentaries can supplement these, he writes, but they are also limited;
'hence the need felt by so many analysts to develop tools which can cope with
those very qualities which resist explication through simple tabulation or verbal
description' (: 68). Samson regards the Ballades as through-composed, directional
structures based on principles of transformation, variation, integration and
synthesis, particularly of two initially contrasted themes brought together in a
recapitulatory apotheosis informed by the sonata dialectic. Op.47's formal design,
for instance, 'invokes the classical model only to subvert it in several ways', the
'gaps' in formal diagrams of this work indicating 'the extent to which Chopin has
reinterpreted the normative functions of sonata form' (: 60). In Op.52 the
'directional qualities of a sonata are counterpointed against the "static" repetition
structure of a variation set' (: 63), while two complementary readings of thematic
process in Op.23 are possible: as goal-directed ('in the spirit of the sonata-form
archetype' [: 48]) and as symmetrical (where the waltz episode in bs 138ff. provides
the peak of an 'extended thematic arch' [: 47]). In Op.38 'the sonata-form plot is
invoked unmistakably' if less blatantly, apparent in the final 'gesture of synthesis
which retains some element of sonata dialectic' (: 51, 52).
Further to this formal orientation, and despite an obvious debt to Schenker,
Samson adopts numerous complementary (and occasionally contradictory)
theoretical and analytical perspectives; one of the most enlightening is that of the
'intensity curve', inherited from Wallace Berry's Structural Functions in Music. For
instance, Samson writes that 'where the two themes [in Op.23] described curves
of intensity - departure and return - on their first appearances, they are ... both
tension-building' in their second incarnations. Throughout the work 'the pacing
and grading of tension ... is unerring.... A graph would describe a gentle curve
in the "exposition", build steadily. . ., drop to the waltz and rise again... [,]
sustain the line... and allow it to drop again only at the approach of the tonic'.
The reprise is also tension-building and 'reaches forward to the highest peak of the
intensity curve in the coda' (1985: 178-9). Noting the end-weighted structures
characteristic of this music, Samson comments that 'in none of Chopin's ballades
is the sense of narrative flow so natural, the progression towards a final apotheosis
so seemingly inevitable, as in the fourth. This demands not only a careful pacing
of the argument, a strategic "placing" of the main peaks of the intensity curve, but
also a capacity to "mark time", to wait for effects' (: 188). The pianissimo chords in
bs 203-10 create 'a brief illusion of repose as we remain poised on a precipice of
harmonic tension', until the bravura coda exorcises 'earlier conflicts and tensions
in a white heat of virtuosity' (: 192). Such attention to pacing, to the temporal
flow of the musical argument is unfortunately all too rare in the literature, despite
its relevance to the analyst as well as the performer.
Other approaches to the Ballades include Wtadimir Protopopow's study
(1965-8) of monodic, homophonic and polyphonic textures in Op.52 (see his
reduction of bs 53-4 in Ex. 4), Jachimecki's discussion of rhythm in Op.23 (1930:
131) and Anna Bogdaifska's analysis of variation technique and thematische Arbeit
in all four works (1986). Motivic and thematic unity is also the focus of Simon
Nicholls's diagrammatic analysis, which is based on certain principles of 'musical
sense' - that is, 'the meaningful succession of ideas in music' - originally
expounded by Hans Keller. Nicholls adduces 'a nexus of intervallic (melodic/
harmonic) and rhythmic ideas' pervading each composition (1986: 16), his

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Ex. 4 Analysis of Op. 52, bs 53-4 (Protopopow 1965-8: 37)

5I 54

b-mo: V. T T V, 2 I
b-moll: Vil 34 6 T R)VIlr 1j;2

attention to rhythm providing a temporal context for this 'wordless analysis' (an
excerpt of which appears in Ex. 5).

Ex. 5 Analysis of Op. 38 (Nicholls 1986: 17)

4-10 bC b cc c3 38-40 c
S r - I - I . I I

69-73 cc
63-4 476a

98-101 c47

171-2

M2 16 177-9
51-2 23 - ..

c extenea

Nov J

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David Witten predicates his detailed study of each Ballade on an eclectic,

intentionally naive approach, showing through recomposed versions of the music
(not unlike Leichtentritt's) how Chopin avoids the 'correct', the predictable, the
seemingly inevitable with regard to phrase structure, harmonic progression,
'registral and metric placement', 'melodic contour' and 'underlying structural
line'. He searches in particular for the 'inherent logic' in each Ballade's
'compositional mechanics' and attempts to define Chopin's 'Ballade style', noting
a recurrent 2-3-1 melodic shape in all four; 'postponement of the structural
dominant' and indeed avoidance of the dominant altogether as a tonal area; use of
VI (sometimes as upper harmonic neighbour) to delay V; a 6--> thematic
parallelism, which functions as a 'unifying force' in each work; and the
incompletion of the Urlinie until the very last bars. Invoking the Grundgestalt at one
point, Witten relates the four works to the ballad definition cited earlier by
highlighting the prevalent 'abrupt transitions, unexpected and precipitous
changes', 'rhetorical questioning' and incremental repetition - i.e. 'intensifying of
the musical situation with every appearance of the motive' (1979: 383, 385). Like
Samson, he also observes that in each work two contrasting melodic ideas are
ultimately juxtaposed 'in an irreversible metamorphosis' (: 387) - in other words,
a dialectical synthesis.
Samson finds additional cyclic links between the four Ballades, including a
common falling-second motive, analogous thematic upbeats, compound duple
metrical patterns and (as mentioned before) generally end-weighted structures,
where 'earlier stages are kept at a low temperature and tension is built gradually
but inexorably towards the final moments when the tonic is reaffirmed in a
moment of catharsis' (1992a: 75), this consistent shape amounting to a 'plot
archetype' (see below). Samson observes that 'since the ballade has no
conventional definition, the absence of specific expectations serves,
... paradoxically, to throw cyclic elements into relief (: 76). One of his main
goals is in fact to demonstrate the diverse generic forces operating in Chopin's
Ballades, for which he invokes numerous theories of genre. He notes in particular
that the composer's extended forms synthesise 'the formal methods of popular
concert music - above all the alternation of bravura figuration and melodic
paragraphs based on popular genres - and the sonata-based designs and organic
tonal structures of the Austro-German tradition' (: 3); indeed, 'much of the
expressive quality of Chopin's music is directly attributable to this play on popular
genres, and it often lies at the root of the descriptive and even programmatic
interpretations favoured by nineteenth- and early twentieth-century critics' (: 72).
Observing that a work's title and content together define its generic meaning,
Samson writes of the Ballades:

It is not so much the intrinsic qualities of the musical work which may suggest
a narrative, but our predisposition - given the genre title - to construct a
narrative from the various ways in which purely musical events are
transformed through time. Such a musical narrative would be based on the
generic character and interplay of themes, on the transformation of
conventional formal successions and on the organisation of large-scale tonal
relationships (: 14).

Samson's attention to narrativity as an analytical premise reflects not only the

paradigm's enduring presence in studies of the Ballades, but also the wider debate

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still raging in music-critical circles as to whether or not music possesses any power
whatever to convey narrative meaning and process, a debate launched in part by
Anthony Newcomb's innovative musical application of Proppian theory and
terminology (e.g. 'paradigmatic plot', 'plot archetype'). In response to Newcomb,
Jean-Jacques Nattiez (1990) has countered that the term 'narrative' has only
metaphorical value in describing musical discourse and is thus best avoided
altogether, whereas Carolyn Abbate accepts the paradigm's validity but only in
special cases, essentially depriving 'the compositional and listening strategies
outlined by Newcomb of the status of narrative' (Samson 1992a: 83; however, cf.
Newcomb 1994). Whether or not Chopin's Ballades constitute one of these
special cases, numerous authors in the past two decades have analysed the four
works - especially the first Ballade - in narrative terms, in part because the genre
title so clearly invites 'a narrative "listening strategy"' (Samson's phrase [: 82])
and because (as Edward Dannreuther writes of Op.38 [1931: 257]) 'one longs for
a clue to the mysterious tale which the music unfolds'. Wagner, for instance,
broaches Op.23 in terms of 'poetic concepts', isolating 'lyric', 'epic', 'dramatic'
and 'pathetic' elements and concluding:

Music itself cannot 'speak', it can only indirectly give the impression of
speech... . The effect of an epic tale, a dramatic or pathetic oration or a
lyrical ode can be created through musical means. Music must avail itself of
these [evocative] devices (1976: 42).

Carl Dahlhaus writes that in Op.23, which 'distantly recalls sonata form, being
based on an underlying contrast of themes', 'it is not the first theme, with its
narrative "ballad tone", but the cantabile second theme that forms the main idea
of the work, an idea emphasized more and more strongly as the piece progresses'.
He suggests that Op.23 'owes its title to its "change of tones", its alternation of the
lyric, epic, and dramatic'; this presented Chopin 'with the problem of establishing
a formal equilibrium between narrative ballad, lyric cantabile, and an urgent
virtuosity that appears with the effect of an explosion'. The composer's
'sophisticated' solution was to recapitulate the parts 'in substance but transformed
in function; in this dialectic lies the structural and aesthetic point of the work'
(1989: 148-9).
Serge Gut takes issue with Dahlhaus in a detailed study of Op.23 (1989),
which explores how principles from the literary ballad were assimilated by Chopin
into a piano idiom, focusing on 'conflicts between language and structure,
language having an aesthetic function and structure providing the musical logic'.
Gut dissects the work according to 'musical content', tonality and 'style' (i.e.
narrative, lyric, epic, dramatic and virtuosic), showing 'the relationship between
the different "styles" on the one hand (language) and themes and tonalities on the
other (structure)' (see Ex. 6). Three structural elements are isolated: the
'narrative' Theme I, the 'lyrical' Theme II and a 'flexible component' - 'all the
new piano figuration and virtuosic traits'. Discerning 'a fundamental bitonality
which unfolds on two levels which, though different, are of equal value' (in
contrast to Schenker's monotonal analysis, discussed above), Gut claims that the
work's tonal structure and aesthetic shape ('the emotional form created by
language') are out of phase: 'in short, the structural climax does not correspond to
the aesthetic climax'. He concludes that 'there results from this non-convergence a
curious "equilibrium within disequilibrium"'

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Ex. 6 'Dissection' of Op. 23 (Gut 1989)

Section Intro. I A II A'
Subsection 1 2 I 3 4 I 5
Bars 1-7 8-35 | 36-67 | 68-93 94-105 | 106-25
SLJ , I L , i J , L 1

Number of bars 7 28 32 26 12 20

I 86 32

I
Musical content figuration Th. I 'bridge' III Th.
Th. I I Th. II
Tonality g g g E a A
Style narrative narrative narrative/ lyric narrative/ lyric/
lyric epic epic

Section III B I IV A" I Coda=VC

Subsection 6 I 7 8 9 | 10 11
Bars 126-37 | 138-49 | 150-65 166-93 | 194-207 208-64
L I L J I L L 1l 1 1 i

Number of bars 12 12 16 28 14 57

I I I

Musical content .... pianistic figurations .... Th. II I Th. I figuration

Tonality E [ I E [ I E? E g g
Style .... dramatic .... lyric narrative/ dramatic
virtuosity epic

Eero Tarasti's ambitious analysis of Op. 23 (Tarasti 1989) is semiotic in

nature, following on from his 1984 study of the Polonaise-Fantasie, 'Pour une
narratologie de Chopin'. Segmenting the Ballade in 'fundamental isotopes', he
identifies thirteen narrative sub-programmes defined in terms of three
'fundamental modalities' - 'to be', 'to do' and 'to become', plus 'to will', 'to
know', 'to believe', 'can' and 'must', to which he assigns values in each passage,
taking into account its 'temporal, spatial and actorial articulation'. For example,
the twelfth isotope (bs 206-50) has 'to do' as its fundamental modality, with the
following additional values: will ++, know + -> 0, can - - -> ++, must -, believe
m+ab (i.e. making [doing] plus appearing to be) (see Ex. 7). Tarasti acknowledges
that his attempt to define a '"generative" trajectory in music' by writing a
'grammar of modality' for Op.23 is open-ended: it is impossible to say whether
particular 'figures' follow a predetermined order in music (like Proppian
functions) 'until one has exhaustively analysed a substantial amount of work of the
composer or historical period in question'. The problem is that Tarasti, like
Wagner and Gut, relies (in Samson's words [1992a: 82]) 'on intuitive and largely
subjective criteria both for the segmentation of the work and for the
characterisation of its segments in terms of psychological states'. The chances are
slim, therefore, of deriving a systematic, theoretical basis for analysing the Ballades
- let alone a larger body of repertoire - from this methodology.
Yet another approach to the Ballades can be found in Cone's 'critical analysis'
of ambiguity in Op.52 (1994). Three categories are defined: ambiguities that are

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Ex. 7 'Isotopes and Modalities' in Op. 23 (Tarasti 1989)

be/do will know can must believe

I not to do + + 0 0 ab
II to be 0 + 0 - + + mab
III to do ++ - + -+ ++ - + - 0 mab-mab
IV not to do 0 + 0 + mab
V not to be - 0 0 0 mab+
trans-

VI not to be + -++ - 0 - mab-m+ab

trans+

VII to
to do
appear ++ + + - + ++ 0 +ab
VIII not to be + + - ++ 0 Fm+ab-mab
trans+

IX to appear - -0 0 ++ - mab
to be
X to be 0 - + -- - ++ m+ab
XI not to be +- ++ -- -- + m+ab-mab
trans+
XII to do ++ + - 0 - - -t++ - m+ab
XIII to do= ++ - 0 +~ ++ ++ 0 mab
to be

a = appear
b = be
m = make

never resolved, those that are resolved and those that amount to 'reinter-
pretations', i.e. they are not even recognised as ambiguities until they are resolved.
Ambiguous elements in short passages (where Chopin employs such means as
gradual, postponed and absent resolution) are related to long-range strategies for
dealing with ambiguities of form, key and metre. Like Krystyna Wilkowska's
study of harmony, form and 'emotional expression' in the Ballades (Wilkowska
1949), Cone's investigation thus links musical details with particular expressive
functions - as (to some extent) does Karol Berger's historically oriented study of
Op.23 (1994).
This is also the aim of Lawrence Kramer's 1985 article on Chopin, which,
though not concerned with the Ballades, is nevertheless pertinent here. Alluding to
'a growing feeling that to isolate musical form in a realm all its own is both futile
and sterile', Kramer articulates a 'need for productive methods of critical inter-
pretation that are neither broadly analogical nor narrowly historicist' (: 145). He
bases his analysis of Chopin's A minor Prelude, Op. 28, No. 2 on 'structural
tropes', i.e. 'recurrent formal configurations that carry a distinctive expressive
potential in music and that are understood rhetorically and figuratively in literary
or speculative texts', forming 'a loosely connected repertoire of expressive
scenarios', of 'miniature genres', of 'typical structural patterns that normally
apply on a limited scale' (: 146).4 The Prelude (like the Ballades) is 'a many-
sided study in dialectic, taking the term in the precise sense of dynamic
oppositions that involve a reversal of meaning or value'. Specifically, 'dialectical

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reversal appears ... as a gradually unfolding antagonism between melody and

harmony' (: 145, 146):

Only in the last two-and-a-half measures are melody and harmony realigned,
but here they are not so much reconciled as fused together, rendered
indistinguishable from each other... . After tearing melody and harmony
further and further apart, the prelude closes by effacing the difference between
them (: 148).

Kramer notes furthermore that 'the unresolvable clash between melody and
harmony represents Chopin's way of staging a larger dialectic between Classical
authority and Romantic innovation', in which the melodic design satisfies
'Classical demands for balance and resolution', whereas the harmony is 'com-
pletely unclassical, or rather anticlassical' (: 148, 149). Thus both a dialectical
internal design and a dialectical compositional style are in operation. In the case of
the Ballades, an analogous (though distinct) pair of embedded dialectical
relationships can be observed: at the level of the work, the thematic and harmonic
dialectic (which culminates in the 'irreversible metamorphosis' alluded to by
Witten) articulated within each of the four pieces, and at the level of reception
history, the dialectical 'framework' that embraces over a century-and-a-half of
analysis of the Ballades. The culmination of this latter dialectic, apparent in
certain recent studies, is (as noted earlier) a 'reconciliatory' if aesthetically prob-
lematic synthesis of the subjective and the objective, the narrative and the
structuralist tendencies discernible in nineteenth- and twentieth-century writing
on these compositions.
This survey of the many disparate analytical methodologies - literary,
descriptive, formal, rhythmic, metrical, tonal, thematic, textural, interpretative,
programmatic, semiotic and hermeneutic - brought to bear upon Chopin's
Ballades invites final consideration of possible ways forward in the study of these
masterpieces - in other words, a look at what lies beyond the putatively 'closed'
dialectical framework sketched above. Certainly much remains to be done in the
sphere of so-called critical analysis, particularly with regard to Op.52, which,
undeniably one of Chopin's greatest works, is surely rich enough to warrant
further analytical investigation. I for one would welcome an historically
contextualised analytical study of this piece in terms of eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century improvisatory traditions, for the work's 'new fluidity and
unpredictability' (Samson 1992a: 17) and especially its rapid changes in 'affect'
(both of which are characteristic of Chopin's late music generally - compare the
Barcarolle, Op.60, Polonaise-Fantasie, Op.61, and Nocturnes, Op.62, all from
1845-6) are extremely suggestive of improvisation, as commentators like Huneker,
Cortot, Abraham and Samson have independently pointed out. An inquiry into
this aspect of the music is therefore especially enticing. In a similar vein, assessing
the four Ballades in the light of contemporary (i.e. nineteenth-century) aesthetics
or music theory might bear fruit, as could a fully-fledged post-structuralist study
(insofar as any such analysis can be aesthetically justified). For instance, current
research linking psychoanalytic theory to musical structure might profitably be
extended to these emotionally intense, highly charged compositions. I am more
confident, however, of the potential in analysing the four pieces in terms relevant
to the performer, whose concerns are largely neglected in the foregoing array of
analytical studies. The relation between analysis and performance is of course a

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topical (if controversial) area of research, and works like the Ballades, which place
great technical and expressive demands on the interpreter, are ideal candidates for
further study in this regard.
In particular, I feel it is worth investigating possible links between the so-called
intonatory curve (or 'intonation contour') of the spoken narrative, and the intensity
curve traceable in each of the Ballades, the latter having special significance for the
performer (as mentioned earlier), implicitly addressing issues of timing,
momentum and, above all, 'dynamic shape'. With these links in mind, I am
tempted to try yet again to justify the metaphor of narrative by seeking a narrative
voice in the four Ballades. Specifically, I wonder if the hidden narrating voice in
these works (and perhaps in any composition) belongs in large part to the
performer, who, as 'story-teller', determines the music's essential 'narrative'
content by following indications in the score as to 'plot' and, as in the enactment
of any 'plot archetype', by shaping the unfolding tale on the spur of the moment in
an expressively appropriate manner.5 Certainly in the act of performance one is
conscious of communicating something to an audience - not of course a story or
programme in the usual sense, but some sort of emotional message, however that
may be manifested or conceived, which, like an imagined, sublimated 'voice',
speaks to one through the music while playing.
Whether or not analysis can ever pin down that ineffable something, can make
explicit what performers themselves only vaguely sense, it need hardly be said that
the 'story' inferred from the notes and realised in sound is not immutably fixed in
the score, and that there are as many such stories for each work as there are
performers. Writing about various recorded performances of the Ballades, Samson
comments:

In the end, of course, the music survives because it is larger than all its
possible interpretations. Of their nature particular readings of the ballades
isolate some features at the expense of others. Yet the musical texts are
infinitely richer than any such isolation of their individual qualities can
possibly yield... (1992a: 44).

Obviously the same is true of analysis: however much an analysis reveals about a
work, it can never be exhaustive or definitive; however much it allows us to know
about the work, it is always possible to know the music more intimately (the
distinction in French between savoir and connaitre is instructive here). This is why
the performer often has an edge over the analyst: to perform a work with any
conviction on a given occasion, it is essential to know it in this way (whether
consciously or not), to grasp 'the whole piece of music in a nutshell' in the mind,
to 'become' the music while performing (see Stein 1962: 71). The degree to which
a particular analysis succeeds may depend on how well the analyst can also do this
(as Dunsby [1993] implies), sensing and communicating - as the performer must -
elusive parameters like momentum, shape and timing, and the hidden 'story' or
message latent in the score, that 'mysterious tale which the music unfolds'. Such
communication lies at the heart of convincing interpretation, whether in prose or
in sound.
While these last remarks do not necessarily define an agenda for further
analytical studies of the Ballades, the issues they have raised are nevertheless
germane. However cogent previous research on the Ballades has been in revealing
their inner workings and their various 'meanings' (and indeed much of the

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literature surveyed in this article is of the highest calibre), there is still plenty of
scope left for analysts attempting to define the 'essence' or 'true content' of the
Ballades - 'the specific expression uniquely embodied' in these works. Even
though any such future efforts will inevitably be less than definitive, the goal is
eminently worth pursuing and the analytical act potentially enriching and
rewarding in and of itself.

NOTES

1. This essay presents a series of 'snapshots' of analytical praxis over some 150
years and attempts to provide a 'frame' for these, or (to extend the metaphor
further) to arrange them in such a way that a discernible 'moving picture'
emerges. It is not, however, a comprehensive account of the reception of the
Ballades, which properly would include not only analytical responses (the
focus here) but writing of a more 'literary' nature, as well as performance
practice, editions, arrangements and transcriptions, and compositions written
under their influence. Samson (1992a) provides such a survey of the reception
history of the Ballades; see also Chechlihiska (1992) for relevant comments. A
more theoretical framework concerning reception studies in general and in the
case of Chopin's music specifically can be found in Samson (1994), which
usefully discusses the rightful place of analytical inquiry in the 'new
musicology'.
I should like to thank Serge Gut and Eero Tarasti for kindly providing
manuscripts of their work. Page numbers of these unpublished studies are not
given in the text. All translations are mine except where otherwise indicated.
2. Jeffrey Kallberg (1994) is critical of such studies, which, he feels, remain
wedded to the very techniques of formalist analysis that they set out to
transcend, techniques which, he claims, all too easily blind us to the values
and modes of understanding of the early nineteenth century.
3. Samson 1985 and 1992a (see also Samson 1992b). Samson's book on the
Ballades (1992a) is by far the most thorough and, in many respects, the most
valuable study of these masterpieces in the vast literature on Chopin. By
providing a wide range of analytical and historical perspectives on the four
works (both the author's own and those of other authors over the ages),
Samson allows the reader respectively to determine 'what Chopin and the
ballades can mean to today's world', and to recover 'something of Chopin's
world, restoring to it its contemporary complexity, diversity and contra-
diction' (: ix). It is because of the book's pre-eminent status that I have
referred to it so copiously in this essay.
4. Kramer's analysis is indicative of the uneasy admixture of structuralist
methodology and post-structuralist aesthetics criticised by Kallberg (1994)
(see note 3 above).
5. An illustration of this process can be found in Rink (1994) where I draw from
personal experience in performing Chopin's C minor Scherzo, Op.39, and
the F minor Concerto, Op.21, in order to demonstrate the relation between
the music's 'narrative' structure and the 'story' that one expresses in
performance.

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