Piano Quintet in F Minor

César Franck’s Piano Quintet shocked the audience at its 1880 premiere—and can still shock audiences now—with an intensely passionate romantic fervour that feels uninhibited. Amid the salon niceties of 19th-century French chamber music, it stands out: ultra-expressive, with extreme dynamic markings and the forward-moving urgency of endlessly destabilising key shifts that give a sense of the ground moving under your feet. It's not hard to believe the (unproven) story that the Quintet gave voice to an otherwise secret love affair between Franck and his pupil Augusta Holmès—which may explain why his wife hated the piece and publicly dismissed it. Whatever the truth, its ardour is contained within more or less traditionally classical structures, scored for two violins, viola, cello, piano. And the three movements are held together by Franck’s characteristic use of motifs that recur throughout, passing through different keys and contexts, but persistent, with a unifying force.