Michala Petri, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Iona Brown - Vivaldi: 6 Flute Concertos Op. 10 (1990)

Michala Petri’s version of Vivaldi’s Six Flute Concertos op. 10 with the Academy of Saint-Martin-In-The-Fields under its first fiddler Iona Brown was recorded in July 1980 – almost the prehistory of Vivaldi interpretation, seen 35 years later. And after all, yes, 1980 is almost exactly the middle point between the beginning of the great 20th century Vivaldi revival, heralded by Louis Kaufman’s ground-breaking recording of the Four Seasons on Concert Hall in 1948 (Vivaldi: Twelve Concertos, Op. 8), and today.

But what marked out Petri back then, and still, to an extent, now, was the choice to play these works on the recorder, rather than with the transverse flute prescribed in the Opus 10 collection, as published circa 1728 by Amsterdam publisher Michel-Charles Le Cène, and as everybody had done since Jean-Pierre Rampal's first recording with Louis de Froment for Vox in circa 1950 (he made three more). In the liner notes, the inescapable Vivaldi specialist Michael Talbot gives plenty of justifications for the substitution - that the transverse flute in Vivaldi’s time was much closer in timbre to the recorder, that earlier versions of Nos. 5 & 6 prescribed indeed recorder, and more still could have been given – but ultimately it is not so much a matter of “authenticity” or not, but of how one reacts to the character of the music when played on recorder. I find that it lends it alacrity and charm to the music, compared to the more polished and polite modern transverse. An additional factor is that Petri doesn’t simply play on “the recorder”, she alternates between soprano and sopranino recorder, the latter playing an octave higher, with a piercing sound, the recorder equivalent of the piccolo: she uses it in Op. 10-3 “Il Gardellino / The Bullfinch”, Op. 10-4 & 6, and it is quite appropriate again.

One regret may be that Petri and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields went only half the way – as long as she was going to use the recorder, Petri might have done as Frans Brüggen the year before (Vivaldi: 6 Flute Concertos Op. 10 ) or Camerata Köln in 1988 (Vivaldi: Flute Concerti Op. 10 - Camerata Köln [Deutsche Harmonia Mundi]) and Il Giardino Armonico in 1990 (Antonio Vivaldi: Concerti da Camera, Vol. 1 (Concerti, Op. 10) - Giovanni Antonini / Il Giardino Armonico), and returned to the original, chamber concerto versions of the Opus 10 cycle: there, it is not flute pitted against strings, but solo instruments of various timbres (flute, oboe, violin, bassoon) dialoguing and combining. Those versions are way more interesting. On the other hand, there is certain thickness to the opposition of the very sharp and focused sound of the recorder, and the complete body of strings of the Academy. As long as they were going to play the Opus 10 concertos rather than the original versions, they might have been better inspired to play with reduced strings, even one a part.