Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2
Frédéric Chopin
Free MIDI file · CC-BY-SA 4.0
Ballade No. 1 Op. 23 in G minor · piano sheet music & MIDI file
The first of Chopin's 4 ballades, complete and free as a piano MIDI: follow it in the preview, then download the file and the sheet music PDF that goes with it.
⏱11:35♪5013 notes🎚Advanced🎹A#0 → F7🦶pedal marks📦45 KB
0:00 / 0:00
Preview played right in your browser with the app's real piano (lightweight version). Inside Pianovera: full multi-layer sound, fingering display and Wait mode.
Chopin sketched the Ballade in Vienna in 1831 and finished it in Paris in 1835; it came out the following year. Before him, a ballade was a poem or a song. He was the first to give the name to a purely instrumental piece, a story told without words. Film made it famous far beyond concert halls, starting with Roman Polanski's The Pianist.
It all begins with a Largo in bare octaves, a unison phrase that sounds like a question. Then comes the first theme in G minor, in a hesitant 6/4, and a second theme in E-flat major that returns transformed, bigger each time. The coda, marked Presto con fuoco, strings together leaps, scales and chords at full speed, and it's the section that made the piece's reputation.
Ballade No. 1: the first notes
Right hand, in letter names (C4 = middle C): C3 D#3 G#3 A#3 C4 G#3 D#4 A#4 C5 G#4 D#5 A#5 C6 G5 A#5 G#5 G5 F#5 F#5 G5 F#5 F5 F#5 A5… The rest scrolls in the preview above, with the fingering, and the sheet music PDF has the whole piece.
What you'll be working on
- The opening Largo in unison octaves, never rushed
- The hesitant 6/4 sway of the first theme
- The E-flat second theme, sung above the arpeggios
- The Presto con fuoco coda, in small blocks, slowly first
Playing Ballade No. 1 on piano with Pianovera
At 11 minutes, this ballade won't go in all at once. In Pianovera, cut it into short loops and move section by section, starting with the Intermediate version: chords trimmed to 2 notes on strong beats make the coda lighter. Set the speed to 50% for the Presto, then climb in steps.
Open Ballade No. 1 Op. 23 in G minor in Pianovera: the notes fall toward an 88-key virtual piano keyboard, each hand gets its color, and Wait mode is there if you're starting out.
Try Pianovera for freeDownload the Ballade No. 1 MIDI and sheet music
Two files are waiting for you: the Ballade No. 1 piano MIDI file (45 KB, opens in Pianovera or any MIDI player) and the Ballade No. 1 piano sheet music PDF (428 KB, printable). Both come from the same engraving: what you read on the score is exactly what you hear in the preview.
The work itself is in the public domain. This MIDI engraving comes from the Mutopia Project, typeset by Javier Ruiz-Alma, under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license (free reuse with attribution, commercial included).
About this piece
Is Ballade No. 1 hard to play on piano?
We rate it advanced: 5013 notes over 11:35, spanning A#0 to F7, with sustain pedal marks. The first thing to work on: the opening Largo in unison octaves, never rushed.
Where can I get the sheet music for Ballade No. 1?
Right on this page: the "View the sheet music" button opens the PDF (428 KB), engraved by the Mutopia Project from the same source as the MIDI file, CC-BY-SA 4.0 license. View it, print it, keep it.
Is the Ballade No. 1 MIDI file really free?
Yes. Frédéric Chopin died more than 70 years ago, so the work (1835) is public domain. This MIDI engraving is under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license: free to use, commercially included, with credit to Javier Ruiz-Alma.