Hyperion Records

The Deuxième Ballade Op 117 No 2 appeared elsewhere—with an added minor-key introduction, as well as the subtitle ‘La mélodieuse’—as No 1 of the Deux Ballades Op 117. Philip Martin plays the version without the introduction, so we have used the numbering adopted by that edition, both for this piece and for the ‘Première Ballade’ (which in the alternative edition is listed as No 2 and subtitled ‘L’harmonieuse’).

Listening blind to this Deuxième Ballade, one might reasonably guess its composer as Gottschalk. There is no doubt that Herz exerted a strong influence on the American boy wonder and the chromatic phrase immediately after the opening theme’s repeat is similar to passages in several of Gottschalk’s works. It is an altogether graceful confection with its cantabile espressivo melody (in B major) and its later runs of demisemiquavers requiring the most delicate touch and sensitive tonal discrimination. The cadenza is reminiscent of those in Mozart’s Fantasia in D minor, K397.

from notes by Jeremy Nicholas © 2008