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, multilayered 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 YouTube 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 postmodern 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 DariaKarmina Iossifova (who has a YouTube channel and an upload of this video, if she wants me to remove this I will.)