The admired Goldner String Quartet presents two utterly charming—yet little-known—examples of French chamber music by contemporaneous composers Pierné and Vierne.

Pierné’s fame came from his conducting, and his compositions are forgotten today. His Piano Quintet shows the influences of Massenet and Franck which characterize his music, and features the Basque dance ‘zortzico’.

Vierne was a celebrated organist, and his compositions for organ are heard every Sunday wherever there are suitable instruments and performers. His String Quartet shows a lighter side: it contains the Intermezzo, described by Roger Nichols as ‘quite simply one of the most delicious movements in all French chamber music. Over it hovers the spirit of Berlioz’s ‘Queen Mab Scherzo’ and of Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, conjured up by pizzicatos, tremolos and dancing phrases that suddenly turn on a centime piece from one key to another’.