Three Romantic Period Piano Ballade Comparative Analysis

From 1820s till 1920s, Romanticism led piano music to its heyday, featuring the piano literature with lyricism, fantasy, and overstatement. In the 100 years, piano's capabilities, composition and techniques developed in an unprecedented way.The thesis focuses with comparisons on the ballads of three Romanticist composers, Chopin, Brahms and Grieg, on the ground that this genre reflects their individual styles and to some extent bears its own typical style. It was Chopin that initiated this genre with four ballads as a model, which deeply influenced the later composers. Brahms was the first who gave his ballads titles of folk poetic images, e.g. the Four Ballads Op 10. Grieg's ballads (Op24) are variations in a strong North European flavor, based on a Norwegian ballad theme.With the three ballads as the object of analysis, the thesis aims at their similarities and differences, which can draw a conclusion on the way and the idioms the composers applied in their expression of something to do with literature, as well as on their influence and significance for the later generations.The breakthrough as reflected in this thesis is its comparison, which reveals the connotations of this genre. The key is the discovery of universality from the contrast of individuality, while the latter also provides the basis for further studies.