Before reaching double figures in terms of age, I was apparently
a top notch recorder player. Wooed in the 1970s by the shiny excitement
of James Galway’s flute, I’m afraid I gave up the recorder completely,
and all I have to show for it is a rather lovely Moeck descant
and a pile of certificates from Trinity and the Associated Board.
Having thrown it all in for modern sounds and the Boehm system
at the age of 9, my lurking guilt at having rejected the recorder
was quite frequently prodded by the rising star that was and is
Michala Petri. Michala was one of the first in my world to prove
that the recorder was a serious instrument, and capable of much
more than rows of indiscriminately blowing and randomly tuneless
schoolchildren would lead your average parent to believe.
These quartets are
of course more often played on ‘conventional’ flute, or for
historically informed performance the transverse flute or traverso.
The latter pretty much took over from the recorder as a relatively
easily mastered chamber instrument for home music making by
the mid 1700s. The Fantasias of Telemann and the A minor
Sonatas of J.S. and C.P.E. Bach were clearly intended for this
instrument, although recorder performances have been released,
notably by Dan Laurin on BIS. Commentators on this particular
Mozart recording have indicated the similarity in sound between
the traverso and recorder, and while I agree they are closer
in timbre to each other than to the modern flute, there are
significant differences.
I love this recording
and have enjoyed it greatly. I have in the past of course been
used to hearing more beefy flute sounds from the likes of William
Bennett on Philips and, more recently Sharon Bezaly on Bis,
but you can’t compare these with Petri’s recorders. I am actually
more of a fan of traverso recordings such as that of my one-time
teacher Lisa
Beznosiuk these days, and whenever I get the chance to play
these pieces this is the kind of sound I try and emulate on
my wooden Hofinger. The chance, by the way, doesn’t come up
as often as you might imagine for us chamber flautists. You
have to rely on string quartets falling apart one way or another,
or finding such an ensemble with a violinist willing to kick
their heels in the dressing room while you do your K number.
For some strange reason this isn’t a popular choice, which is
why you will often find flautists joining up with ad-hoc string
players rather than left-over bits of an established quartet
– much as with this recording.
As I say, I’ve had
a great time listening to the playing on this disc, but I do
perceive one drawback. This will not be an issue for most people,
and I’m going to have a hard time convincing anyone that this
isn’t just a tirade against playing these works on anything
other than a transverse flute of one kind or another. Whatever,
I have to state that my only problem with these recordings is
intonation. No, Petri is not ‘out-of-tune’ by any stretch, but
to my ears the dynamic demands of this music seem to ask more
of the recorder than it can deliver without pushing the boundaries
of comfort. With a transverse flute you can and do always adjust
your intonation with the lips, altering the angle and volume
of the airstream depending on the register you are in, and the
amplitude of the sound you wish to produce. There are ways of
‘helping’ the recorder in this way, but in essence what you
are blowing into is a kind of wooden organ pipe with extra finger
holes so that you can get more than one note. This means that
when the air pressure increases the pitch rises, and when it
decreases it drops – like when the pump fails on an organ. Balancing
with three quite substantial sounding string instruments, the
recorder here often has to project and push through the general
texture and the pitch frequently hits the top end of the note
in terms of intonation. This is of course far better than being
flat, and is by no means an unknown acoustic effect, but hearing
such familiar works through this medium seems to have sharpened
my perceptions in this direction. As I say, many listeners probably
won’t notice this, even more won’t be bothered by it in the
face of such elegant musicianship, but, having laboured the
point, flute players and fans of good ‘historically informed’
recordings or sensitively performed modern instrument ones may
possibly find sinking deeply into the comfy chair a little less
easy than they expected.
All of this said,
this recording is full of wonderful playing and some fun moments,
such as the introduction of a sopranino recorder during the
Tema con variazioni in K285b. Petri uses vibrato sparingly
and tastefully, and doesn’t go overboard with colourful ornamentation,
and if anything there might have been more. The string players
are equally strong, and the overall sound is robust and full-bodied.
I’m not quite sure how the recorded sound was produced in what
looks like quite a small studio, but there is plenty of air
around the instruments and the resonance is convincing enough.
The SACD surround effect is well produced but more subtle than
dramatic, the heightened sense of space being an asset. All
in all this is an interesting set and a fine production which
has to be recommended on just about every level, though it might
have been nice to have a few of the trios to fill out the timing.
Now, where’s my fingering chart ...
Dominy Clements
Michala Petri
(recorders); Carolin Widmann (violin); Ula Ulijona (viola); Marta
Sudraba (cello) 
[59:07] 
