Recorder virtuoso
Michala Petri is a big proponent of performing certain early transverse flute literature on her chosen instrument, and in a way, she has a point. When it comes to Mozart's flute chamber music, the recorder is closer to the wooden flute favored in Mozart's day than a modern flute, with its many keys and metal body. The question is to whether one might develop a preference for the recorder over a modern flute in these often recorded, generally familiar works; not a likely scenario for most flute fanciers. The answer is once you hear
Petri play them on recorder, you might not go back to the flute. Our Recordings' Mozart: Flute Quartets is that good:
Petri's tone seems effortless and is pristine and pure, but never whistle-like, and
Petri's legato on the recorder is seamless and smooth. Accentuating such positives is the ad hoc chamber group supporting
Petri on this disc, made up of members from Germany, Lithuania, and Latvia, respectively, violinist
Carolin Widmann, violist Ula Ulijona, and cellist Marta Sudraba. They are responsive to both
Petri and to Mozart's subtle shades of dynamics in this music, which is excellently well recorded onto the SACD format. The sessions were held at a studio on the Danish island of Bornholm during summertime, and the recording is of such quality as to bring the tincture of warm, northern sea air into the room through one's speakers. Our Recordings' Mozart: Flute Quartets is recommended and should appeal to those who enjoy exceptionally well-recorded, attractive, and life-affirming chamber music; chances are, once listeners are into this disc for a while, they will soon forget they are listening to a recorder rather than a flute.