Belgian violinist, conductor and composer Eugène Ysaÿe was born in Liège in 1858 and died in Brussels in 1931. His first music teacher was his father, a violinist (a pupil of Francois Prume) and conducror of amateur music societies. Ysaÿe began studying with Désiré Heynberg at the Liège Conservatory in 1865, but he was an unsettled child and his attendance irregular, so that the lessons with Heynberg were discontinued in 1869. However, he returned to the Conservatory in 1872 and joined Rodolphe Massart's class. He was unanimously adjudged co-winner with Guillaume Remy of the Conservaroty's silver medal in 1874, and also won a bursary which enabled him to take lessons with Henryk Wieniawski in Brussels and then study with Henry Vieuxtemps in Paris. Four years spent attending lectures and concerts in the French capital helped him to make useful artistic contacts. In 1879 he became leader of the Bilse orchestra in Berlin and he stayed there until 1882.

At this time the patronage of Anton Rubinstein brought him his first important contracts as a soloist (in Scandinavia, Russia and Hungary). He returned to Paris in autumn 1883, and soon had many European engagements. He maintained close links both with the great French masters of the day - Saint-Saëns, Franck and Fauré - and with rising composers such as d'Indy and Chausson. His first appearances at the Concerts Colonne were triumphantly successful, and Belgium reclaimed him; on the departure of Jeno Hubay, Vieuxtemps' successor at the Brussels Conservatory, Gevaert appointed Ysaÿe to teach the prestigious violin class there. His career was flourishing: besides performing as a soloist he composed a quartet which immediately created a stir, making it a point of honour for him to participate in concerts of avant-garde chamber music in Paris and Brussels. He played in the first performances of many outstanding works which are dedicated to him; Franck's Violin Sonata (1886), Chausson's Concert (1889-91) and Poème (1896), d'Indy's First String Quartet (1890), Debussy's String Quartet (1893) and Lekeu's Violin Sonata (1892).

Ysaÿe's career was at its height from his first American tour in 1894 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. He played in the most famous concert halls and his talent was universally acknowledged. He used his fame as a virtuoso to launch new ventures: in 1895 he and Maurice Kufferath founded the Société Symphonique des Concerts Ysaÿe, managing and conducting a large orchestra which gave concerts mainly of modern music, and which became a feature of Belgian musical life. A few months later he and Raoul Pugno formed a duo which continued until Pugno's death in 1914. Although Ysaÿe collaborated with other notable pianists such as Anton Rubinstein, Busoni, Ziloti, Nat and his own brother Theophile Ysaÿe, his partnership with Pugno was of exceptional renown. Their programmes set a new standard in that they most often consisted exclusively of sonatas, which was unusual at the time.

Having turned to orchestral conducting of his own volition, Ysaÿe was increasingly obliged to take refuge in it: his playing was being impaired by problems arising from neuritis and diabetes, and by his loss of bow control. (The last was exacerbated by his unorthodox grip, which had not, however, prevented him from developing one of the most immaculate techniques of the time.) His health had been failing since the beginning of the century, and his playing deteriorated rapidly during the war. He accepted the post of conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 1918 and remained there until 1922, giving precedence to modern French music. On returning to Belgium he resumed several of his former activities - including the Concerts Ysaÿe and the giving of private lessons - and up to 1928 he continued to perform in notable concerts in Europe. (They included all Beethovan's sonatas with Clara Haskil and the Violin Concerto conducted by Pablo Casals, for the Beethoven centenary in 1927.) His right foot was amputated in 1929. He gave his last concert in November 1930 and finished writing an opera (on a popular Belgian subject), which was given its premiere at the Théâtre Royal in Liège a few weeks before his death.

Ysaÿe's playing influenced three generations of violinists. He abandoned the old style of Joachim, Wieniawski, Sarasate and Auer for one that combined rigorous technique and forceful sound with creative freedom on the part of the interpreter. To younger players such as Enescu, Flesch, Huberman, Kreisler, Szigeti and Thibaud he was an example of absolute devotion to his art, and the virtuosos of his own generation - César Thomson, Hubay and Remy - always had to suffer comparison with him. At the turn of the century, he was regarded as supreme among violinists and when he gave the first performance in Berlin of Elgar's Violin Concerto (5 January 1912) the greatest contemporary violinists (including Kreisler, Flesch, Elman and Marteau) were in the audience. As many eyewitness accounts show, they were not disappointed: the wonderful sound, his technique (including the variety of his vibrato) and his interpretation were captivating; he was also well liked for his personality, which was marked by generosity, a sense of solidarity with other musicians and an unquenchable appetite for life.

Ysaÿe was long regarded as important in the development of the modern style of violin playing. He also represented a synthesis of the qualities of Franco-Belgian violin playing before virtuosity became an end in itself. To Ysaÿe, virtuosity was indispensable (he admired Paganini and Vieuxtemps), but as a means to re-create the music, rather than mere exhibitionism (in this he agreed with Busoni, with whom he shared a liking for transcriptions). This ideal, reinforced by his choice of high quality works for his concerts (eloquently illustrated in the programmes of the Ysaÿe Quartet and the Ysaÿe-Pugno duo), was not wholly realized by the next generation: Thibaud, Kreisler, Enescu and others were influenced to some extent, but between the wars their recitals only rarely equalled those of Ysaÿe in choice of programmes and in their interpretation. Ysaÿe's recordings, most of them made in 1912 in difficult circumstances, reveal an exceptionally refined interpretative art.

From adolescence, and seemingly spontaneously, Ysaÿe joined the ranks of virtuosos who were also composers, following the tradition of his compatriots C.-A. de Bériot, Hubert Léonard and Henry Vieuxtemps. Some early salon pieces and concertos made little mark at the time, but after he became acquainted with French composers (Saint-Saëns, Fauré and the school of Franck) he abandoned decorative virtuosity for an improvisatory, passionate character; his scoring sometimes lacks subtlety, but the works are full of harmonic originality. His Poème élégiaque preceded and inspired Chausson's Poème, and expressionist anxieties can be heard in pieces such as Exil for string orchestra. Ysaÿe was modest about his own compositions and rarely played or conducted them. However, his witty Caprice d'après I'Étude en forme de valse de Saint-Saëns, a piece of sustained virtuosity, became famous. His Six Sonatas op.27 for violin solo and solo cello sonata (op.28), written after his return from the USA, bear fascinating witness to Ysaÿe's art; in their harmonic originality and virtuosity, he was composing for posterity and the younger generation of violinists. Increasing attention is paid to these pieces today, and they have entered the solo violin repertory.

Of Ysaÿe's various ideas for the organization of musical life (he had hoped to be appointed director of the Brussels Conservatory in 1912), two came into being after his death, thanks to his friendship with Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, to whom he gave violin lessons over a long period. One was the Concours Eugène Ysaÿe, a competition intended to reward virtuoso players and initiated in 1937 (after World War II it became the Queen Elisabeth Competition) . The other was the Queen Elisabeth Chapelle Musicale (1939), set up to give further training to graduates of the Belgian conservatories.