Eugène Walckiers (1793–1866)
Quintet for Flute, Violin, Viola, Cello, and Double Bass in A major Op. 90 (1852/55)

I. Allegro moderato
II. Adagio
III. Scherzo. Allegro – Moderato
IV. Finale. Allegretto

Anton Reicha (1770–1836)
Quartet for Flute, Violin, Viola, and Cello in G major Op. 98 No. 6 (c. 1813)

I. Allegro moderato – Modulation. Lento –
II. Largo – Modulation. Lento –
III. Fugue à deux sujets. Allegro
IV. Finale. Poco adagio – Agitato

Intermission

Eugène Walckiers
Sextet for Flute, two Violins, Viola, Cello, and Double Bass in A major Op. 49 (c. 1830?)

I. Allegro ma non troppo
II. Andante con moto
III. Scherzo. Allegro molto
IV. Finale. Andante religioso – Allegro vivo

The Iconoclast
Discovering the Music of Eugène Walckiers

Alexis Kossenko

Approximately 12 years ago a violist friend told me about Eugène Walckiers. My encounter with his music left me enthusiastic, even euphoric. As a personality, he is quite likeable as well, and one quickly notices his dry humor—he comes across like a mad scientist with a twinkle in his eye.

Walckiers hailed from Avesnes-sur-Helpe in the French Ardennes, just a few kilometers from the Belgian border; his life’s journey would take him to Le Havre and Paris. He studied flute with Jean-Louis Tulou and eventually, at Boieldieu’s recommendation, played for Anton Reicha, who accepted him as a student in counterpoint and composition and took him under his wing. Reicha’s original, knowledgeable, and cheerfully imaginative style left unmistakable traces in Walckiers’s oeuvre. Paris between 1820 and 1830 was brimming with musical life: Rossini brought Le Comte Ory and later Guillaume Tell to the stage there, Berlioz set off aesthetic shock waves with his Symphonie fantastique, and François Habeneck, the leader of a top orchestra, the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, left audiences speechless and wildly enthusiastic with Beethoven’s symphonies. All this informed Walckiers’s imagination, and he enjoyed summoning his famous role models in is own works—doing so with wit, admiration, and humility.

Walckiers held no official position as a flutist; he made a living by selling his compositions and giving private flute lessons. In 1829, he published his Méthode de flûte, an excellent handbook of flute technique in my view that stands out through great finesse, psychological instinct, and a subtle choice of words and musical approach—to say nothing of Walckiers’s absolutely extraordinary didactic spirit.

Walckiers became a privileged witness to the technical and aesthetic developments occurring between 1832 and 1860. Trained on a flute with five or six finger holes (which soon came to be called flûte ordinaire, or common flute, to differentiate it from the new flute developed by Theobald Böhm), he maintained cordial relations with his teacher Tulou (a stalwart defender of the old flute), but also established a friendly rapport with the younger generation that was adopting the new system. His music would reflect this development.

Extraordinary Daring

At first glance, Walckiers’s oeuvre closely resembles that of most composing flutists of the 19th century: opera paraphrases, brilliant fantasies, duos … But there are also far more ambitious chamber music works, especially his quartets and quintets, which show a remarkable balance between the instruments, with the flute by no means claiming the sole leading role. Studying these works more closely, I was surprised to discover extraordinary daring, utterly lyrical phrasing, astonishing modulations, theatrical leaps, and true inspiration, all paired with humor, wit, a sunny disposition that seems likely to achieve greatness, yet disposed not to take itself too seriously, to remain humble and, first and foremost, to provide pleasure and joy to the performers.

Another striking element is the meticulous handwriting, indicating every nuance of articulation and other details. Walckiers must have paid close attention to the engraving of his music, for the original editions contain unusually few inconsistencies or mistakes. The performance markings are extremely precise as well: “broadly, warmly, highly expressively, quietly, heatedly, suavely, energetically, gently and freely, softly, with an almost sobbing expression, melancholy, spirited, passionately, with a tender tongue, with gracious balance and slight abandon, without nuance, with a naïve expression, with a slightly stilted tone…” Or this: “Each of these sixteenth notes must lead towards the next note, in the manner of good Italian singers. This portamento should be executed so that it can hardly be perceived, and requires the utmost degree of delicacy and artistry.”

Mature Mastery 

The instrumentation of the Quintet Op. 90 varies, depending on the source. The handwritten manuscript of 1852 calls for a string quintet, while the 1855 edition specifies a flute and strings (with the necessary changes to make the part of the first violin suitable for a flute). The edition published by Richault offers the option of either a second cello or a double bass; of course we chose the double bass, for the Quintet was dedicated to the leading French double bass player of his time, Achille Gouffé, principal bass at the Opéra, of the Imperial Orchestra, and the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. Gouffé was a fixture of musical life in Paris, not least because he hosted weekly concerts at his home that drew all the composers and performers to gather in a congenial atmosphere. It serves as a indication of the friendly connection between Walckiers and Gouffé that the composer had most of his works premiered at Gouffé’s soirées—a shame, by the way, that his Septet and Octet, both of which greatly impressed listeners, have been lost.

The Op. 90 Quintet is among Walckiers’s mature works—compared to Op. 49, which is full of passion and madness, it may appear more dignified and in a wiser vein. The opening Allegro moderato immediately reveals its lyrical beauty, interrupted by energetic, passionate passages. This is music of honest emotions, revealing a noble and sensitive soul. The delicate writing in the final measures is remarkable, giving the impression that the movement seems to be falling asleep, after a somewhat mysterious odyssey of modulations. The Adagio is carried by a sweet cantilena, the viola and cello spinning richly melodic phrases in a dialogue with the flute. The scherzo is very vivacious, with a transparent, mischievous character, but once again Walckiers opts for contrast and daringly pairs it with a cheerful, trivial trio—pure “Oktoberfest.” In the finale, the composer hearkens back to the boldness of his youth, pulling us into an eddy of theatrical moods, unpredictable and continuously changing. As if trying to delay the comical effect as much as possible, Walckiers begins the movement with gently flowing lines, before all the instruments begin to quarrel and fight—but the storm is short-lived: joyful virtuosity wins the upper hand, leading into a triumphal and martial tutti. The composer here reveals his skill of employing musical cross-references, ruptures, and modulations; if this is not a work of absolute genius, it certainly does not lack in spirit and musical mastery.

A Flirt with Symphony and Opera

The Quintet Op. 49 for flute and strings is really a sextet if you add the double bass. Unlike in Op. 90, it is not an obligato part here but marked ad libitum. It does, however, enrich the sound considerably, lending it a real orchestral quality by doubling the cello in the lower octave, amplifying certain passages and rhythmically driving the entire ensemble forward. This piece—which I consider Walckiers’s masterwork—is a prime example of his power of invention, the refinement of his instrumentation, his humor, and his heightened sense of theatricality. More than anywhere else, here he truly flirts with symphony and opera. The second movement, an Andante with variations, reveals glimpses of the harmonic structure of the slow movement of Beethoven’s “Eroica”; and as if to reinforce the idea, some of the variations echo motifs from that symphony. In terms of tonality, Walckiers is more than audacious, writing a movement in F-sharp minor that contains long passages in F-sharp major—a key that is awkward, to say the least, to play on the common flute, and doubtless for the strings as well. The Andante ends in this key as well, following an extended violin cadenza that is clearly reminiscent of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. The scherzo, on the other hand, rather evokes Mendelssohn, conjuring a world of Puck-like characters and mischievous elves in lively rhythmical structures.

The Finale is remarkable in every way, so clearly inspired by Rossini that we are left to wonder if it may have been conceived as a conscious homage. It includes a church chorale (divinely harmonized and scored), a twinkling Allegro that turns into a frenetic gallop before being interrupted by the harbingers of an imminent thunderstorm: the air feels electric, a few raindrops begin to fall, gusts of wind arise, and suddenly the elements are unleashed, with violent gales, lightning bolts, and thunder—at which moment, amid all the mayhem, the chorale reappears. Looking back a few years takes us to 1828 and the Paris premiere of Rossini’s Le Comte Ory. In Act II, the lovesick Count and his soldiers, dressed up as pilgrims, make their way into the castle where the crusaders’ wives (the objects of their amorous pursuit) have sought refuge from the tempest raging outside. The frightened women sense the imminent danger and counter the wrath of heaven with desperate prayers to drown out the storm. The parallel is reflected in the ending—with all the ingredients of the musical storm this Quintet unleashes taken from the Rossini playbook (with the exception of a chromatic passage directly inspired by Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique). Walckiers is having fun recreating this operatic scene in a chamber music format.

“In the manner of Haydn”

It seemed natural to round out the program with a work by Walckiers’s teacher Anton Reicha. We chose one of the Six Quartets Op. 98, published around 1822. At the time, Reicha was firmly established in Paris, where he had lived for 14 years, as an influential figure and professor at the Conservatoire. The Quartets are dedicated to Joseph Guillou, flutist at the Opéra and the predecessor of Jean-Louis Tulou as the Conservatoire’s flute professor (Guillou being one of Tulou’s few rivals). The pieces have a character all their own, which the composer describes in his preface to the score: “I composed these quartets in the manner of Haydn, which is to say that each instrument is treated as an obligato voice. Flute lovers therefore should not expect their instrument to have the predominant role throughout. Considered isolated from the strings, the flute part will often appear insignificant since the interest is divided evenly among the four voices. My intention was to write true quartets rather than flute sonatas with string accompaniment. Certainly, there are more than enough compositions of this style already.”

This note may seem surprising, but we tend to forget that the concertante quartet, in which the leading instrument (flute or first violin) was treated pretty much as a soloist, had been the dominant genre for the preceding 30 years. This is why Reicha was at pains to offer great chamber music and to simultaneously avoid flattering the egos of individual musicians.

There is a small, special feature to the G-major Quartet Op. 98 No. 6, in the form of very short movements entitled “Modulation,” consisting only of two or three measures, that act as a bridge between the distant key signatures of the main movements. They reveal Reicha the theorist who does not hesitate to make something clearly visible that others might have concealed in the musical texture of the main movements. Is this meant to be pedagogical? Is it audacity? After all, in another Quartet from this set, Reicha quite daringly included a movement with five different tempo markings. At the same time, he proudly pays homage to the old-fashioned form of the fugue (in the third movement)—a domain where he excels while playing humorous games, not hesitating to let listeners lose their way in the meandering contrapuntal texture, only to miraculously rescue them as they (and the performers!) believe themselves hopelessly lost. In the Largo, here the second movement, and in the introduction of the finale, Reicha sets up instrumental dialogues of sensuous eloquence before ending the Quartet with a brief, sanguine, electric Agitato like a gust of wind (as if prefiguring the tempest of his younger colleague Walckiers’s Op. 90) that brings the work to a close with panache.

Translated from German by Alexa Nieschlag