The young Sonoro Quartet continue their celebration of Franck’s bicentenary with one of his most popular works. This Piano Quintet was a succès de scandale – a seductive Irish student, an inflamed composer, an outraged and rejected pianist, the composer’s furious wife and a delighted audience made up the opening night’s imbroglio. The composer was known to have said that the young and beautiful private organ and composition student, Augusta Holmès, aroused in him the most unspiritual desires; the composer’s wife knew exactly what was going on whereas the pianist, Camille Saint-Saëns, sight-reading the piano part, only discovered this during the performance. The full story is in the music.
