Two young artists, one a painter and one a musician, both in love with the same woman, compelled and tormented by a single violin melody. It’s no wonder that this story, from Ivan Turgenev’s novella Le Chant de l’amour triomphant (‘The Song of Triumphant Love’), provided inspiration for Ernest Chausson’s haunting Poème, with the violin soloist echoing the novella’s recurring theme.…

Could the Adagio of Gabriel Fauré’s first piano quartet have inspired the Vinteuil’s fictional sonata, the “little phrase” of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time? In the novel, the sonata marks the deepening love between Swann and Odette before twisting into a motif for the heartache of their separation.  Fauré himself was grieving after the end of his engagement to Marianne Viardot, and…