Program Notes
Ballade
Apart from some of his songs, only three works in the distinguished output of Gabriel Fauré could be said to have become popular: his Requiem, Pavane, and the Ballade for piano. Fauré’s Ballade, said the great pianist Alfred Cortot, ‘is lapped in a calm atmosphere of controlled emotion and quiet happiness, emphasising an instrumental technique that is deliberately light and pellucid’…