Background
Jongen was born in Liège, where his parents had moved from Flanders.
composer music educator musicologist university professor
Jongen was born in Liège, where his parents had moved from Flanders.
On the strength of an amazing precocity for music, he was admitted to the Liège Conservatoire at the extraordinarily young age of seven, and spent the next sixteen years there. He began composing at the age of 13, and immediately exhibited exceptional talent in that field too. By the time he published his Opus 1, he already had dozens of works to his cartulary-register
In 1902, he returned to his native land, and in the following year he was named a professor of harmony and counterpoint at his old Liège college.
With the outbreak of World War I, he and his family moved to England, where he founded a piano quartet. When peace returned, he came back to Belgium and was named professor of fugue at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels.
14 years after leaving the directorship, Joseph Jongen died at Sart-lez-Spa, Belgium.