Vivaldi: Four Seasons; Concerto In C Major, RV 443 / Michala Petri (1990)

B I O G R A P H Y
In a international career that spans four continents and includes thousands of concerts and numerous awards, Michala Petri has become firmly established as one of the finest musicians performing today, delighting and astonishing audiences worldwide with her virtuosity and musicality.

Born i Copenhagen on 7th July 1958, Ms Petri began playing the recorder at the age of three and was first heard on Danish Radio when she was five. Her debut as concerto soloist took place at the Tivoli Concert Hall i 1969, the year in which she began her studies with proffesor Ferdinand Conrad at the "Hochschule für Musik und Theater" in Hannover. Since then the Danish artist has toured extensively throughout Europa, North America, Israel, Australia and the Far East, and she has appeared at many of the worlds most prestigious festivals.



She has performed with musicians such as Heinz Holliger, Pinchas Zukerman, James Galway, Salvatore Accardo, Maurice Andrè, Keith Jarrett, Christopher Hogwood and Claudio Abbado, and appeared as soloist with many of the worlds major Chamber Orchestras and Symphony Orchestras.

Michala Petri has received the highest praise for her astonishing virtuosity in a repertoire ranging from the early baroque to contemporary works, many of them written especially for her.

For many years Michala Petri has had an interest in working with the combination recorder/guitar and she has toured with guitarists like Göran Söllsher and KazuhitoYamashita.With Manuel Barrueco a USA tour is planned for the spring 2002. In 1992 Ms Petri formed a duo with her husband danish guitarist and lute player Lars Hannibal, with whom she has toured in Europe, USA and Japan. Future plans include a.m.o. tours in Europa, Japan, USA and Australia.

Ms Petri has been an exclusive recording artist for BMG/RCA Red Seal since1987. In 1998 she released a new album with `Berliner Barock Solisten´, and in 1999 an album with Scandinavian popular music with London Philharmonic Orchestra. Her next release, in spring 2001, will be an album with Lars Hannibal, inspired by Fritz Kreisler and featuring romatic music for recorder and guitar.

Other recordings include a Grieg album with the `English Chamber Orchestra`, two albums of music for recorder and lute/guitar with Lars Hannibal and an album of contemporary works written for Ms Petri with the `English Chamber Orchestra`.

For her exciting collaboration with Vladimir Spivakov and the `Moscow Virtuosi` performing Vivaldi flute concertos, she got the German award "Deutscher Schallplattenpreis" 1997. The same year she was nominated to the most prestigious Nordic Council Music Prize. In 1995 the Queen of Denmark awarded her the Order Knight of Dannebrog, and in 1998 she received the Wilhelm Hansen Music Prize as well as the H.C. Lumbye Prize for her achievement in bringing classic music to a wide audience.
In June 2000 Michala Petri recieved the most prestigious Sonning Music Prize.

"Just over ten years ago RCA brought out a version of The Four Seasons with its star Flute-player James Galway, as soloist, replacing the violin, and very enjoyable it was (RL25034, 2/77; CD RD70161, 6/85). Now with another star wind-player newly under contract, the same company uses a similar device, and among the dozens of versions of this much-recorded group of works it could hardly be more distinctive. As expected, it proves an admirable vehicle for a winning artist, who in her own transcriptons puts her personal magic on rhythm and phrasing, not least in the slow movements, never dawdling sentimentally but always setting the solo instrument in relief by its very contrast of timbre.
Those likely to be attracted by the idea of Petri as soloist are not going to be worried overmuch about any scholarly justification, and though the recorder might be counted a period instrument, it remains alone in this ensemble, with, the talented young string-players (originally assembled at Guildhall School in London) adopting their usual modern performance technique. The hand of another highly individual artist lies behind this too, George Malcolm, who springs rhythms in his continuo to match his soloist, and adds his own little harpsichord cadenza before the first movement coda of ''Autumn''.
The problem for Petri in making her transcription for recorder has been largely one of pitch, far more critical than with Galway's flute. In the opening tutti, you hear the bright silvery sound of the soloist from the start, and then the great shrieks on high B confirm the arrival of the sopranino recorder, never a discreet instrument. Though Petri does wonders in making it more expressive than I have ever known it, the relentlessly penetrating quality of sopranino tone is wearing, and the very end of ''Winter'', shrieking away up an octave gets near to being painful. Even so, the bird-song imitations are made the more naturalistic by the brightness of timbre, and unlike such a baroque flautist as Frans Bruggen in his accounts of Vivaldi's Flute Concerto, Il gardellino (RCA GL70951; CD RD70951, 2/87), Petri steers a relatively discreet line between naturalism and the notes in the score, when it comes to bird-song. In fast movements her articulation is a marvel, as in the Danza pastorale of ''Spring'', while understandably she opts out in favour of the violin in some of the last movement tuttis of the Storm in the second concerto.
Where in the slow movements of the first two concertos the relatively low pitching of the melody allows for the more comfortable timbre of the ordinary descant recorder, the slow movements of ''Autumn'' and ''Winter'' are made the more edgy by sopranino tone, and it is the same instrument which is used in the concerto which comes as makeweight on Side 2, the delightful Concerto in C, RV443, with its haunting minor-key slow movement and a finale which brightly uses horn-pipe rhythm. Compared with Petri's earlier version for Philips with Iiona Brown and the St Martin's Academy (9500 714, 11/80; CD 400 075-2PH, 7/83), this one is even fresher and clearer, largely a question of recorded sound.
The recording is bright and fresh to match the performances, with the solo instruments grabbing prominence naturally without too much spotlighting."
– Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [12/1987]

Tracklisting:

01. Spring: I. Allegro - |3:19|
02. Spring: II. Largo e pianissimo sempre - |2:24|
03. Spring: III. Allegro - Danza pastorale - |3:48|
04. Summer: I. Allegro non molto; Allegro - |4:47|
05. Summer: II. Adagio; Presto - |2:01|
06. Summer: III. Presto; Tempo impetuoso d'estate - |2:49|
07. Autumn: I. Allegro - |4:44|
08. Autumn: II. Adagio molto - |2:02|
09. Autumn: I. Allegro - |3:14|
10. Winter: I. Allegro non molto - |3:26|
11. Winter: II. Largo - |2:09|
12. Winter: III. Allegro - |2:48|
13. Concerto in C for Recorder: I. Allegro - |3:45|
14. Concerto in C for Recorder: II. Largo - |4:00|
15. Concerto in C for Recorder: III. Allegro molto - |2:40|

Performer: Michala Petri
Conductor: George Malcolm
Guildhall String Ensemble





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Air - Works for Recorder and Guitar / Michala Petri, Lars Hannibal