Lekeu was a Belgian composer.  He settled in Poitiers in 1879, studying
violin, piano and cello and composing prolifically from the age of 15.
His early works show great thematic and rhythmic inventiveness.  He moved
to Paris in June 1888, and made a pilgrimage to Bayreuth the following
year.  He studied counterpoint and fugue with Franck, and after Franck's
death, fugue and orchestration with d'Indy.  He died of typhoid fever at
the age of 24.

Lekeu was greatly affected by the emotional temperature of the Franck
circle, and the two great influences on his work, as on others of the
circle, were late Beethoven and Wagner.  The Piano Sonata, the Piano
Quartet and the Violin Sonata are among those works suffused with a kind
of feverish, almost preternatural intensity, and his weaknesses are the
outcome of the then currently fashionable necessity to think, as well as
to feel, in the grand manner.  However, signs of an individual intelligence
in the making are detectable on almost every page; for instance, in the
'Nocturne' (no.3 of the Trois poemes for voice and piano to Lekeu's own
words) the late Romantic afflatus gives place to early glimmerings of
impressionism, and in the orchestral Fantaisie sur deux airs populaires
angevins folksong proved to be (as with d'Indy) a revitalizing and
purifying influence."

I have a CD with music by Lekeu.  It's on the Harmonia Mundi label (number
HMA1901455) and it's truly nice music.  It contains works for soprano and
piano, for ensemble with solo cello and for orchestra.  I can only
recommend it.

Paolo