Eugène Ysaÿe, a violin virtuoso admired by all his contemporaries, was an inheritor of what has justly been considered as the Belgian school of violin, whose ascendancy can be traced back to the beginning of the 19th century. His work as a composer, however, is much less well known today and it is this facet of his extraordinarily active life that we will explore here. He composed many different types of works; here we present his works for solo violin and orchestra, including two movements of violin concertos which are now available on record for the first time, and his chamber music.

Guillaume Lekeu (1870-1894) was a Belgian composer who died tragically young. He dedicated himself to composition from an early age, and was largely self-taught before César Franck took him under his wing. Unfortunately Franck died only a year later, after which Lekeu came under the tutelage of D'Indy, was befriended by Chausson, and received important commissions from the great Belgian violinisy Ysayë. The sublime Adagio for Strings on this disc, which Lekeu uncharacteristically never menions in his voluminous correspondence, was doubtless written in Franck's memory. The disc also contains Lekeu's major orchestral work, the Fantasy on two Angevin folk songs, and the touching symphonic study Ophélie, here given in its shorter (and to my mind better) version.