Kaija Saariaho - Ballade (2005)

In the words of the woman herself,
"In this short piece I wanted to write music with a melody that grows out of the texture before descending into it again; a work that constantly shifts from a complex, multi-layered texture to concentrated single lines and back again.
Why ballade? Manny asked for a piece specifically bearing this title, and I wrote it for him in July 2005."
Kaija Saariaho is perhaps one of the most underrated living composers today. No matter the amount she is being performed, it isn't enough. This short piano piece only showcases a fraction of her masterful writing and ear for textures. Even her popular pieces here on TH-cam cannot compare to her orchestral works and operas. Coming from Finland, Saariaho studied with the best of the Spectralist composers and in turn drew great influence from them; but only that. Saariaho is not a spectralist composer, she is a post-modern great with spectralist tendencies and you can hear this in pieces such as Adriana Mater, L'amour de loin, Du cristal, and various other works. I do plan on uploading more of her work but the scores are massive and most of the PDFs online are very blurry.
I do not own the rights to the score, music or the quote. This is for educational purposes and to spread the word of a beautiful masterful composer. Saariaho is living so please support her!!!!!
Piano is Daria-Karmina Iossifova (who has a TH-cam channel and an upload of this video, if she wants me to remove this I will.)

[@eensio]

She was our splendid creator of contemporary music and her music is living here as a contemporary music.
The contemporary music shall be called eternally as a contemporary music. It has been so over hundred years.

[@michelprezman51]

Quel accademisme! Aaahhh merveilleux clichés!

[@shawncasey7533]

Thanks for posting this! I read about this composer a few years ago when I was going through a spectralist phase but wasn’t able to remember her name.

[@JohnathandosSantos]

RIP

[@aliceandalejandro1404]

Thank you so much for this video!!! So helpful

[@NareshNaresh-lr9nq]

Marvellous!!!!!

[@pjimenez08]

Nice little piece!

[@handledav]

cool

[@machida5114]

sodelicious............................

[@user-kj8wb7eu3q]

Fantastic
Have spiritoso moments
I love Kaija Saariaho music

[@NareshNaresh-lr9nq]

Making exuberant!!!!

[@gardikagigih5704]

beautiful

[@SCRIABINIST]

B A S E D

[@ICanPickLocks]

Nice seeing you here

[@__414.88b_]

Lovely darkness

[@simonalbrecht9435]

Beautiful, lovely music! I'd just spell it with two sharps in the key signature as B minor, though. Seems like the only reason not to is spite or a desire to be superficially different from 19th century, am I wrong?
Not that this takes anything away from the quality of the music itself, of course.

[@InfluxDecline]

I don't think the piece is in B minor, personally. It ends on an A natural and many of the significant phrases contain B-flat and/or F-natural, as well as E-flat and common motions from C-natural to D-flat.

[@simonalbrecht9435]

@@InfluxDecline I got myself the sheet music and hopefully will find time to study it thoroughly :)

[@MrInterestingthings]

Saariaho is magic and intelligence and heart in everything he does ! I don't really like this rambling music(I wouldn't program it ,it's too dreamy (all of its figures never coalesce into something memorable-the climax in 4th minute doesn't make it for me)but that is its point it's a rambler . Schumann's Fantasie rambles and rhapsodizes but it all holds beautifully and from the first notes it's always a good ride . I'm looking for new piano pieces I think I'll play my own !

[@mhv1279]

"She" does. Saariaho is a lady, please

[@slowloris880]

here are the ideas of your sentences: empty praise which you never support and instead contradict, while seeming like you have no idea who the composer is; you don't like this music; schumann made music you consider similar but which you actually do like; a final, pointless thought about looking for stuff to play which culminates in you telling the world you've decided to play your own music? what is the point of your post and who are you talking to if not solely yourself?

[@JD_Washington]

Her music practically breaks the rules of harmony and melody to create a true cacophany

[@Qazwdx111]

Hardly cacophony unless you act like harmony is sacred.

[@klop4228]

I mean, it has its own rules of harmony. Not like later Romantic composers' harmony scans through a Bachian lens either

[@__414.88b_]

That's what composers are doing starting from like beethoven

[@ubershmuck]

"rules" "cacophony" even if you didn't exclusively write cpp Shit you discredited your opinion already

[@JD_Washington]

🤮

[@plushbatfan]

Saariaho passed away yesterday. So sad, so true