Born three years after Lekeu, Joseph Jongen had his musical training not in Paris but at the Liege Conservatoire, where he studied under well known teachers such as Sylvain Dupuis and Theodore Radoux. The former, with an international reputation and a future conductor at the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, introduced him to modern music, Wagner, the school of Cesar Franck, the young German composers, and Jongen’s progress was rapid as a pianist, organist and composer. In 1897 he won the Grand Prix de Rome and travelled, according to the regulations of the prize, to Germany, Italy and France. Drawn to the Schola Cantorum, he was influenced by Vincent d’lndy, while still retaining his admiration for Richard Strauss and for Faure, Debussy and later, Ravel.
Jongen taught at the Liege Conservatoire, and from 1920 at the Brussels Conservatoire, of which he became director in 1923 until his retirement in 1939. His work is deeply rooted in his own country, disciplined in structure and showing a certain freshness and clear spontaneity, with a command of melody, harmony and polyphony, and a keen sense for the blending of sounds, apparent in the many original combinations of instruments in his chamber music.