Franck: String Quartet; Piano Quintet

Following the release of their highly praised Naxos recording of Fauré’s Piano Quintets - “warmly expressive, their phrasing generous and intense” (The Guardian) – Cristina Ortiz and the Fine Arts Quartet again join forces for this recording of Franck’s Piano Quintet. The extraordinary emotional range of this work is unified by the tight thematic relationships typical of the composer’s ‘cyclic’ structuring. His String Quartet, composed ten years later, is a summit of Franck’s achievement, also cyclically conceived and revealing his admiration of Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Brahms.