Based on a real story of romance and revenge from the Renaissance, the tragic love of Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini was immortalized in Dante’s Inferno. His portrayal proved so powerful that 500 years later, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky chose it as his text for a breathless symphonic poem. Composed in just three week, his fantasia combines all the manic energy of Liszt with the fury of Wagner, brilliantly evoking the torment of lovers haunted by the memory of illicit pleasure.