Inspired by Canto V of the "Inferno" of Dante"s "Divine Comedy", Tchaikovsky initially planned to create an opera on the subject but abandoned the idea in favor the present 24-minute fantasia for orchestra in 1876. Bearing all the hallmarks of the composer"s late romantic style, "Francesca da Rimini" takes full advantage of the powerful orchestral forces employed. The first performance was given on March 9, 1877 in Moscow, with the RMS Orchestra conducted by Nikolay Rubinstein. This is a new, digitally enhanced reissue of the score originally published around 1900 in Leipzig by Ernst Eulenburg.