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MOZART: The Four Flute Quartets

Michala Petri, recorders/ Carolin Widmann, violin/ Ula Ulijona, viola/ Marta Sudraba, cello

OUR Recordings SACD 6.220570

Not Mozart's favourite instrument nor are these my favourite Mozart works - they are given loving performances which make convincing the use of recorders, rather than the more usual modern flute in many of the recordings available.

Michala Petri rings the changes with several instruments and finishes K285b on sopranino, which I doubt she would claim as in any way authentic, but no matter, it makes for an effective finish.

I have a personal interest in this release because, in long since student days when I used to play the recorder, I deplored the lack of any Mozart solo music for my instrument. So I transcribed the (inauthentic) solo part of the "violin sonata K.570" [Peters Edn] to create a Mozart sonata for treble recorder, which was belatedly published by Peacock Press in time for the Mozart 250 celebrations year; it is available from Recorder Music Mail.**

The disc is a high quality SACD recording (if you have the equipment to appreciate its niceities*) but the music sounds fine on a variety of ordinary players. It should inspire recorder players to bring the quartets into their chamber music repertoires.

Peter Grahame Woolf

See also:

1. Mozart Flute Quartets (Guimond/Sonnerie) with Baroque Flute & Period Strings

2. Michala Petri Recorder Concertos

and watch Michala playing with Lars Hannibal

* q.v. SACD+Blu-ray

** Mozart was notoriously antipathetic to flutes. "Whenever I have to write music for an instrument I dislike, I immediately lose interest" wrote Mozart in a letter to his father on 14th of February, 1778. Perhaps, too, it has been suggested, Mozart had less enthusiasm writing for an amateur player. The flute, with its cross-fingered notes, gained a reputation for being played out of tune and that too may have affected his comments.

Adapted to fill the gap for recorder players, and published in the Mozart Year 2006, this transcripton for Treble Recorder by Peter Grahame Woolf is of the violin part added to Mozart's Piano Sonata in Bb K 570 by one Andre (Peter's Edn), thus creating the form in which this music had become well known under the erroneous title "Mozart - Violin Sonata in Bb, K. 570"

PGW