Ballade fra Fantasistykker for Piano op. 36 BACKER-GRONDAHL AGATHE

Musique pour orchestres et ensembles

Description :

Agathe Backer Grøndahl’s ‘Ballade’ can best be described as a Romantic character piece. Such one-movement piano pieces with titles that loosely indicate a mood/idea made out a central genre in the 19th century. In Backer Grøndahl’s production, several of these are grouped under the term ‘fantasy pieces’. There are six collections with a total of 48 fantasy pieces on her opus list and ‘Ballade’ is from the first of these (Op. 36), published in 1895. ‘Ballade’ is a broader work than the other fantasy pieces. It is built around a dramatic theme that keeps returning after episodes with strongly contrasting thematic material. The arrangement is close to Backer Grøndahl’s original composition. It is transposed a semitone down: from E flat minor to D minor. The arrangement contains some challenging passages and is well-suited for amateur bands of a certain level. The instrumentation makes no special demands beyond normal concert band instrumentation and will sound just as good in small as in large bands.