‘Frank Braley and the artists in residence of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel’

Since his victory at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1991, it is always good to reunite with Frank Braley. As part of the Belgian Music Days, he surrounds himself with some young rising stars for two unique chamber music pieces by two Belgian 19th-century greats.  César Franck’s Piano Quintet in F minor is an excellent piece of compositional art in which he couples dynamic and expressive contrasts with a thoroughly harmonic tension. The work of his pupil, Guillaume Lekeu – who died far too early, just a day before his 24th birthday – is perhaps less well known. Yet his Piano Quartet oozes maturity in which he also manages to add honeyed accents in a turbulent story.