Chopin Ballade n° 3, op. 47

Frédéric Chopin wrote his Ballade no. 3 in A flat major, Op. 47, in 1841, and published it with dedication to Pauline de Noailles. It shares some similarities with the Raindrop Prelude, as both of them were said to be inspired by a disastrous trip to Majorca with George Sand. Chopin may be said to be the creator of the Ballade as a distinct genre, inspiring many musicians (such as Liszt and Brahms) to write their own Ballades. Though the pieces seem to be entirely different between them, analysts have shown that the Ballades share a number of traits, like a mirror reexposition (where the order of the first and second themes are inverted), and the so called ballade meter (a 6/8 or 6/4 meter).