Fantaisie sur de motifs de l’opéra Guillaume Tell de Rossini

As a pupil of Antonin Reicha at the Paris Conservatoire Eugène Walckiers, originally from the French part of Flanders, joined the ranks of illustrious French composers such as Hector Berlioz, Charles Gounod and César Franck. He studied the flute with Jean-Louis Tulou and was one of the few celebrated flute virtuosos of the time whose reputation has survived to this day, thanks to their compositions for and including the flute. He himself played regularly in a legendary quartet with the best flautists of his day: Jean Firmin Brossa, Johannes Donjon and Paul Taffanel. This Fantaisie sur des Motifs de l’Opera “Guillaume Tell” was published in the year following the first performance of the opera both by Schott in Mainz and, with insignificant discrepancies, by Troupenas in Paris (Plate number 374), the original publisher of Rossini’s last four operas. Plate no. 3289 / published in 1830.