The Ballade is one of the earliest works by Morawetz. It was premièred by the Canadian pianist, Ray Dudley in Baltimore. A few month before Charles Foreman recorded this composition the composer decided to revise the Ballade by changing the texture and the harmonic content of a number of passages in order to heighten the dramatic content of the work. Therefore the recording can be regarded as a type of world première.

The form could be described as a very free Sonata form. In the exposition the nervous syncopated pulse of the first theme is twice interrupted by the second and third theme, both of lyrical nature. In the beginning of the development, short fragments of the first and second theme alternate. The very dramatic climax is achieved by very dense strettos of the second theme which culminates with a slow dotted augmented version of the theme (also heard in a stretto) which replaces the lyrical nature of the melody almost by the feeling of a slow funeral march. The recapitulation brings only the other (3rd) lyrical theme. This is quite unexpectedly interrupted by a sudden dramatic explosion of the coda based on the first theme which starts very agitated but gradually quietens down.