Byron Janis

Byron Janis (born March 24, 1928) is an American classical pianist. He made several recordings for RCA Victor and Mercury Records, and occupies two volumes of the Philips series Great Pianists of the 20th Century. His discography covers repertoire from Beethoven to David W. Guion and includes major piano concertos from Mozart to Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev. His pianism has been described as combining a Horowitzian technique with a sublime musicality akin to Cortot's. He has a special affinity for Chopin and made a French film on him that was shown around the world.

Life

Janis was born Byron Yanks (a shortened form of his family's name, Yankilevich) in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, to Jewish parents of Russian and Polish descent.

He had his first piano lesson at age 4 with Abraham Litow, who had studied at the prestigious Music Conservatory in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). Janis studied with Litow until he was 7. The pedagogue Selmar Janson had offered Janis a scholarship at Carnegie-Tech University in Pittsburgh, where he had many relatives, but his mother insisted, over the objections of the rest of his family, that he be sent to New York.

Ballades (Chopin)

Frédéric Chopin's four ballades are one-movement pieces for solo piano, composed between 1831 and 1842. They are some of the most challenging pieces in the standard piano repertoire.

The term ballade was used by Chopin in the sense of a balletic interlude or dance-piece, equivalent to the old Italian ballata, but the term may also have connotations of the medieval heroic ballad, a narrative minstrel-song, often of a fantastical character. There are dramatic and dance-like elements in Chopin's use of the genre, and he may be said to be a pioneer of the ballade as an abstract musical form. The four ballades are said to have been inspired by poet Adam Mickiewicz. The exact inspiration for each individual ballade, however, is unclear and disputed.

The ballades are considered an innovation of Chopin's and cannot be placed into another form (e.g. sonata). Though they do not conform exactly to sonata form, the "ballade form" created by Chopin for his four ballades is a distinct variant of sonata form with specific discrepancies, such as the mirror reprise (presenting the two expositional themes in reverse order during the recapitulation). The ballades have directly influenced composers such as Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms who, after Chopin, wrote ballades of their own.

Ballade No. 1 (Liszt)

Ballade No. 1 in D flat major, S.170, is a solo piano piece by the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt, composed between 1845 and 1848. In the original edition it contained the title "Le Chant Du Croisé" or "The Chant of the Crusader". A typical performance of the piece lasts about 7 to 8 minutes.

Form and Structure

The piece contains two themes with a short introductory passage. The main theme is reiterated 7 times with different technical obstructions each time. The second theme is placed in the after the fifth iteration. It is a march like theme (marked Tempo di Marcia). It repeats itself only twice before returning into the main theme, though it returns with a modest coda at the close of the piece.

Notes

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