Giovanni Battista Pergolesi died in 1736 at the age of 26. Guillaume Lekeu died in 1894 just one day after his 24th birthday. What immense losses! Had Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Wagner et al died at the age of 24, how much poorer music would be.

At the moment, I am conducting a mini Lekeu festival in my flat, centred on his chamber works. I have two recordings of the magnificent (but unfinished) piano quartet, one from the Ensemble Eugène Ysaÿe, one from a quartet led from the piano by Daniel Blumenthal (copy courtesy of Carlos). The Blumenthal version is by far the best: taut, focussed with well integrated sound. More Lekeu is on order (Quatuor Debussy) as well as the violin sonata from Alina Ibragimova, due at the end of this month.

I like Lekeu's music, which echoes Brahms, Wagner or Bruckner without the Teutonic thickness of the writing and the ideas. His death after just 23 years of life was an immense tragedy for all of us.