The ''ballade'' (; ; not to be confused with the

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or '' ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

) is a form of medieval and Renaissance French

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...

as well as the corresponding musical chanson form. It was one of the three '' formes fixes'' (the other two were the rondeau and the

virelai A ''virelai'' is a form of medieval French verse used often in poetry and music. It is one of the three ''formes fixes'' (the others were the ballade and the rondeau) and was one of the most common verse forms set to music in Europe from th ...

) and one of the verse forms in France most commonly set to music between the late 13th and the 15th centuries. The formes fixes were standard forms in French-texted song of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The ballade is usually in three stanzas, each ending with a refrain (a repeated segment of text and music). The ballade as a verse form typically consists of three eight-line stanzas, each with a consistent metre and a particular rhyme scheme. The last line in the stanza is a refrain. The stanzas are often followed by a four-line concluding stanza (an ''

envoi Envoi or envoy in poetry is used to describe: * A short stanza at the end of a poem such as a ballad, used either to address an imagined or actual person or to comment on the preceding body of the poem. * A dedicatory poem about sending the book ...

'') usually addressed to a

prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. ...

. The rhyme scheme is therefore usually , where the capital "C" is a refrain. The many different rhyming words that are needed (the 'b' rhyme needs at least fourteen words) makes the form more difficult for English than for French poets. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in the form. It was revived in the 19th century by English-language poets including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Algernon Charles Swinburne. Other notable English-language ballade writers are Andrew Lang, Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton
at Wikisource
. A humorous example is Wendy Cope's 'Proverbial Ballade'.

Musical form

The musical form of a ballade stanza is a

bar form Bar form (German: ''die Barform'' or ''der Bar'') is a musical form of the pattern AAB. Original use The term comes from the rigorous terminology of the Meistersinger guilds of the 15th to 18th century who used it to refer to their songs and the ...

(AAB), with a first, repeated musical section (''stollen'') setting the two initial pairs of verses (rhymes "ab–ab"), and the second section (''abgesang'') setting the remaining lines including the refrain verse ("bcbC"). The two statements of the "A" section often have different endings, known as "ouvert" and "clos" respectively, with the harmony of the "ouvert" ending leading back to the beginning and that of the "clos" ending leading forward into the "B" section. In many ballades, the final part of the "B" section may reintroduce melodic material referring back to the end of the "A" part, a feature known as "musical rhyme" (or, in German, ''Rücklaufballade''). An alternative form employed by Machaut, known as ''ballade duplex'' or ''balladelle'', has the B part also divided into two repetitions, with the refrain line sung as part of the repetition. A famous exception to the normal form is "Se la face ay pale" by Guillaume Dufay, where the entire stanza is through-composed, i.e. without a repetition between the two "A" sections.

Notable writers of ballades

Guillaume de Machaut Guillaume de Machaut (, ; also Machau and Machault; – April 1377) was a French composer and poet who was the central figure of the style in late medieval music. His dominance of the genre is such that modern musicologists use his death t ...

wrote 42 ballades set to music. A few of them set two or even three poems to music simultaneously, with different texts sung in different voices. Most of the others have a single texted voice with either one or two untexted (instrumental) accompanying voices. One of the most notable writers of ballades in the 15th century was

François Villon François Villon ( Modern French: , ; – after 1463) is the best known French poet of the Late Middle Ages. He was involved in criminal behavior and had multiple encounters with law enforcement authorities. Villon wrote about some of these e ...

Variations

There are many easy-to-identify variations to the ballade; it is in many ways similar to the ode and

chant royal The Chant Royal is a poetic form that is a variation of the ballad form and consists of five eleven-line stanzas with a rhyme scheme and a five-line envoi rhyming or a seven-line envoi (capital letters indicate lines repeated verbatim). To add t ...

. Some ballades have five stanzas. A seven-line ballade, or ballade royal, consists of four stanzas of

rhyme royal Rhyme royal (or rime royal) is a rhyming stanza form that was introduced to English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer. The form enjoyed significant success in the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth century. It has had a more subdued but continuing ...

, all using the same three rhymes, all ending in a refrain, without an

. A ballade supreme has ten-line stanzas rhyming , with the envoi . An example is ''

Ballade des Pendus The ''Ballade des pendus'', literally "ballad of the hanged", also known as ''Epitaphe Villon'' or ''Frères humains'', is the best-known poem by François Villon. It is commonly acknowledged, although not clearly established, that Villon wrote it ...

'' by

. There are also instances of a double ballade and double-refrain ballade.

Musical form

Notable writers of ballades

Variations

References

Further reading