MELODIC minor in Chopin's Ballade # 1

[tinctoria88]

OK, I'm very involved with the use of MELODIC MINOR scales in Chopin's Ballade # 1.  I'm trying to get my ears wrapped around this scale.  It's one note away from major!!  There's the group of them among the octave scale section, other splashes along the way of melodic minor flavor with the ending scale flourishes in g melodic minor.  How does the sound of this particular version of a minor scale strikek everyone?  Does anyone know of a reason in the development of Chopin's computational style for why he chose so much expression of the melodic minor scale in this Ballade op. 23?

[xdjuicebox]

It's not just Chopin, the idea has been around for a while.

The key thing is that in the natural minor scale, the leading tone is missing, and so it just doesn't sound as epic/powerful. So whenever a voice was on the 7th degree, and was resolving to the tonic, they would raise it a half step so that it was the leading tone. (For example, in F minor, a melody containing Eb -> F would be modified to E -> F...the implied tonality is C7 -> Fm)

Now, you could leave it at that (that scale is called harmonic minor), but melodically that augmented second from the flatted sixth to the natural seventh degree sounds kind of weird. So they raised the sixth degree as well to obtain - you guessed it - melodic minor. (Don't ask me who "they" is; I'm not that well versed in the history of it all, but something about 18th century counterpoint should lead you in the right direction) In some contexts, melodic minor is natural on the way up, and flatted on the way down (because you really only need to make the change to a leading tone if the melody is heading for the tonic), but on the piano, usually it's both up and down. Not surprising, considering Chopin's love of Bach...

Interestingly enough, Chopin uses harmonic minor on the way down, and melodic on the way up...but the downward bit made sense because that was a D7 (b9) chord. The idea is to avoid F natural since it conflicts with the leading tone of G minor.

[tinctoria88]

 Thank you for your observations about the choice of melodic minor in the Ballade op. 23.   The aspect of leading tones and epic flavor makes sense why Chopin would use this version of minor so prominently.   Also the melodic minor scale has an ancient feeling of mode to it