Guillaume Lekeu
Encyclopedia
Guillaume Lekeu was a Belgian composer of classical music.

Life

Lekeu, who was born in Verviers
Verviers
Verviers is a Walloon city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Liège. The Verviers municipality includes the old communes of Ensival, Lambermont, Petit-Rechain, Stembert, and Heusy...

, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, took his first lessons at the conservatoire in that city. In 1879, his parents moved to Poitiers
Poitiers
Poitiers is a city on the Clain river in west central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and of the Poitou-Charentes region. The centre is picturesque and its streets are interesting for predominant remains of historical architecture, especially from the Romanesque...

, France. There, he finished school while he continued his music studies autodidactically. At the age of 15, he composed his first piece.

In 1888, his family settled down in Paris where Lekeu became a student of César Franck
César Franck
César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....

. After Franck's death, Vincent d'Indy
Vincent d'Indy
Vincent d'Indy was a French composer and teacher.-Life:Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age from his paternal grandmother, who passed him on to Antoine François Marmontel and...

 became his new teacher. He obtained in 1891 a second Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome (Belgium)
The Belgian Prix de Rome is an award for young artists, created in 1832, following the example of the original French Prix de Rome. The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp organised the prize until 1920, when the national government took over. The first prize is also sometimes called the Grand Prix...

 for his cantata Andromède.

The famous violin virtuoso Eugène Ysaÿe
Eugène Ysaÿe
Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist, composer and conductor born in Liège. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tzar"...

, who had been friendly with Franck, asked Lekeu to write for him a violin sonata
Violin sonata
A violin sonata is a musical composition for violin, which is nearly always accompanied by a piano or other keyboard instrument, or by figured bass in the Baroque period.-A:*Ella Adayevskaya**Sonata Greca for Violin or Clarinet and Piano...

. Ysaÿe played this composition for the first time in March 1893, and it remains Lekeu's most popular piece. At the age of 23, Lekeu fell ill with typhoid fever
Typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...

 and died in Angers
Angers
Angers is the main city in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France about south-west of Paris. Angers is located in the French region known by its pre-revolutionary, provincial name, Anjou, and its inhabitants are called Angevins....

 only one day after his 24th birthday. He was buried in a suburb of Verviers.

Compositions

Lekeu composed about 50 works. Several of them have been recorded a number of times, notably the violin sonata. His style shows influences of Franck, Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

 and Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

, though he was never a mere imitator of those masters. He used cyclic principles; that is to say, themes in his works will often recur from movement to movement, as they do in a good many of Franck's and d'Indy's compositions. In general, Lekeu is regarded as a highly talented composer who died far too young.
  • Works for orchestra
    • Première étude symphonique (1889)
    • Deuxième étude symphonique (1889)
    • Adagio pour quartet d'orchestre (1891)
    • Fantasy on two folktunes from Angers (1892)
    • Introduction and Adagio for brass band (1892)
  • Vocal Music
    • Andromède, poème lyrique et symphonique for soloists, choir and orchestra (1891)
    • Chant lyrique for choir and orchestra (1891)
    • songs
  • Chamber Music
    • String Quartet
      String quartet
      A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

       in G major (1888)
    • Piano Quartet
      Piano quartet
      In European classical music, piano quartet denotes a chamber music composition for piano and three other instruments, or a musical ensemble comprising such instruments...

       in B minor (1892/93, completed by d'Indy)
    • Piano Trio
      Piano trio
      A piano trio is a group of piano and two other instruments, usually a violin and a cello, or a piece of music written for such a group. It is one of the most common forms found in classical chamber music...

       in C minor (1890/91)
    • Violin Sonata
      Violin sonata
      A violin sonata is a musical composition for violin, which is nearly always accompanied by a piano or other keyboard instrument, or by figured bass in the Baroque period.-A:*Ella Adayevskaya**Sonata Greca for Violin or Clarinet and Piano...

       (1892/93)
    • Cello Sonata
      Cello sonata
      A cello sonata is usually a sonata written for cello and piano, though other instrumentations are used, such as solo cello. The most famous Romantic-era cellos sonatas are those written by Johannes Brahms and Ludwig van Beethoven...

       in F minor (1888)
    • Piano Sonata
      Piano sonata
      A piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement , two movements , five or even more movements...

      in G minor (1891)

External links

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