Over the course of his career Frank Martin produced a series of pieces he called Ballades, all one-movement works featuring a solo instrumental part. The Ballade for flute and piano is one of the earliest such entries in his catalogue. Like all but two of the Ballades, it was written first with a piano accompaniment and later orchestrated. Martin originally composed the Ballade as a compulsory piece for a flute competition; the particular musical challenge it poses for the performer is the negotiation of the composer's typical wide melodic leaps while retaining a lyrical, legato line. The work further tests the performer's abilities throughout the instrument's entire range; the section that focuses on the low register is particularly striking, with an effective ostinato in the accompaniment. The Ballade is neoclassical in its orientation and tonal (though marked by chromatic coloration) in its harmonic language, and has remained one of the most popular shorter works in the twentieth century flute repertoire.

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