Unlike the other landmark collections that came from Bach’s pen, the six flute sonatas all appear to have been "one offs" with no particular plan for publication as a set. Further, in contrast to the collections for solo strings, Bach's chamber music for flute was written comparatively late in his career, the earliest, the Sonata in E minor BWV1034, probably a product of Bach’s early Leipzig years (mid-1720s) and the latest, the Sonata in E major for flute and continuo BWV1035, is believed to have been written during the last decade of composer’s life for Frederick the Great.

In honor of OUR Recordings' 40th Release, Michala Petri could scarcely choose a more exciting program than a return visit to Bach’s Flute Sonatas; Michala’s famous 1992 recording with Keith Jarrett has long since attained legendary status. Just as her collaboration with Jarrett unveiled a 'new-born' approach to Bach, this new recording is likewise revelatory and… transcendent.

Joining Michala on this journey is an early music dream team: harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, rightly regarded as one of the fiercest of the younger generation of clavecinistes, playing his new Jukka Ollikka harpsichord, and Hille Perl, one of the world’s leading and most beloved viola da gambists rounding out the continuo unit. As we’ve come to expect from OUR Recordings, the sonics and packaging are as extraordinary as the performances thanks to the Wizard of Sound, Preben Iwan and booklet notes by Mahan Esfahani. This new recording of the Bach “Flute” Sonatas is destined to become a reference edition of this famous works.

The Danish composer Axel Borup-Jorgensen (1924-2012) was one of the 20th century’s great Scandinavian “silent individualists.” Born in Denmark and raised in Sweden, he was largely self-taught as a composer, emerging on the international spotlight in 1965 when his Nordic Summer Pastoral won first prize in the competition for a short orchestral work held by Danmarks Radio. While the avant-garde of the sixties exerted a strong influence on Borup-Jorgensen's sound world, he always followed his own intuition and obeyed his extraordinary sense of organizing sound combined with a passionate, almost mystical regard for nature. Borup-Jorgensen's music exists on the margins of silence, punctuated with searing dramatic eruptions, all of which can be heard in his orchestral masterpiece Marin (1970). Borup-Jorgensen massive ‘sea symphony’ exists in its own unique world of sound - sometimes in as many as 55 separate voices - and is one of the most challenging and meticulously detailed orchestral textures ever set to paper. Such visceral music demands visual expression and as part of this very special DVD/SACD release, Lückow Film, and an international team of animators directed by Morten Bartholdy bring Borup-Jorgensen's musical world to life. Also included is the new film AXEL - a portrait of both the composer, and of mid-century Danish modernism featuring interviews with other composers, colleagues and friends, as well as excerpts from recent live performances of the music by Axel Borup-Jorgensen.

Aarhus – or Aros as the town was called in Viking times, is one of the oldest cities in Denmark and was first settled around the 8th century. Its name means “the mouth of the river”, referring to the town’s location by the mouth of Aarhus Å (Aarhus River). Owing to its central location, Aarhus enjoyed generations of peace and prosperity and is popularly known as Smilets By (City of Smiles). It is the Danish city with the youngest demographics and home to Scandinavia’s largest university, Aarhus University.

From this vibrant environment emerge the young guitarists Simon Wildau and Mikkel Egelund, who, in honor of their hometown, call themselves the Aros Guitar Duo. The Duo has garnered several 1st Prizes in international competitions for Guitar Duos, including Liectensteiner Guitarrentage Ligita, Omiš Guitar Fest (Croatia), and Fiuggi International Guitar Festival (Italy).

The Aros Guitar Duo presents six works composed especially for them in the years 2018-2021. Each composer was given the singular task of incorporating the theme of Morten Børup’s 500-year-old ode "In vernalis temporis", a melody that has been played by the town carillon since 1948 and has become the official melody of Aarhus. This CD, and the entire project, is a loving tribute to the city of Aarhus. It features a grand suite in six movements by six very different composers, all of whom have a connection to the city of Aarhus. Despite differences in ages and circumstances, composers Asger Agerskov Buur, Martin Lohse, Peter Bruun, Rasmus Zwicki, John Frandsen, and Wayne Siegel have jointly created a shimmering sonic portrait of Denmark’s second-largest city and the diversity of the contemporary music scene in Denmark.

“UPHEAVAL” is an exceptional project in several aspects. First, it presents four compositions for cello and piano written by female composers from the first part of the 20th century, challenging the cultural norms of the day and secondly, the title “Upheaval”, also refers to the tumultuous period around the First World War.

The works featured on this recording are Henriëtta Bosmans' Sonata for Cello and Piano (1919), Dora Pejacevic's Sonata for Cello and Piano (1913), Nadia Boulanger's Trois pièces (1914), and Lili Boulanger's Nocturne (1911), were all written over an eight-year period in France, the Netherlands, and Croatia. Henriëtte Bosmans was one of Holland's greatest pianists, and a composer of great distinction as her sweeping, early Cello Sonata proves. Countess Maria Theodora Paulina (Dora) Pejacevic is rightfully considered the matriarch of Croatian composers. Her Cello Sonata, Opus 35 embodies late romanticism, with influences of Mendelssohn, Brahms and Dvorak particularly evident. The program concludes with works from two amazing sisters: Nadia (1887–1979) and Lili Boulanger (1893–1918). Both were pioneers in their fields (Lili was the First Woman to win the coveted Prix de Rome, and Nadia, for teaching about every major post war composer) and were for many years, two of the best-known women in music in the twentieth century.

The artists, the husband-and-wife cello/piano duo of Janne Fredens (cello) and Søren Rastogi (piano) approach this program with a sense of profound commitment and mission, recognizing that there performances of such unfamiliar repertoire may well serve as a benchmark for future artists. Both are active soloists and teach at the Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus. The chosen instrument for the recording is the Bechstein Gran Piano to match the beautiful tone of Janne's cello, and to give an impression of the periods piano sound.

This is a highly recommended recording for fans of unfamiliar chamber music, advocates for women composers and those who just love to hear glorious music played by great musicians with passion and commitment.

The inspiration for Hugo Distler’s gem of a Christmas narrative can be found in the German-language protestant sacred music of the early baroque era, especially the music of Heinrich Schütz. Drawing on Schütz’s example, Distler composed his Christmas story exclusively for vocalists – soloists and a 4-8-voiced ensemble – in what is, in Distler’s own words, described as an “Oratorium mit kammermusikalishem Charakter." We also hear parts of the beautiful choral Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, which appears seven times during the course of the narrative. – every time in a new harmonic colour. The story of Hugo Distler’s life is a tragic one. Born in Nuremburg in 1908, he would go on to teach at the School for Church Music in Spandau before being appointed professor of church music in Stuttgart in 1940. Distler, who was a deeply religious man, has been recognized as a forerunner of the New German Church Music, an important musical movement which developed in the 1930s. The Nazis stigmatized Distler’s compositions as “degenerate art”, and when he received his conscription papers, he took his life. Sadly, Distler’s music is seldom performed outside of Germany even to this day. Hailed by Gramophone as “a choir worth listening to for their beautiful singing, which can deliver performances of pure, natural eloquence,” the 16 voices of the award-winning vocal ensemble Concert Clemens, founded by conductor Carsten Seyer-Hansen in 1997, has established itself as one of the leading vocal ensembles in Scandinavia. Their stylistic versatility has been seen in numerous collaborations exploring the connections between jazz and classical music as well as note-perfect interpretations of standard repertoire. The evangelist, tenor Adam Riis, is one of Denmark’s leading voices. Recorded in the DXD format by the Danish “Wizard of Sound”, Preben Iwan, in the resonant sonics of Skt. Markus Kirken, Århus.

As the progenitor of a style whose influence more or less came to define the instrumental music of the High Baroque, Arcangelo Corelli (1653 - 1713) occupies a position in music history as unenviable as it is to his great credit. Just what made Corelli’s style seem strikingly novel to his contemporaries is a tricky question. To be sure, his standardization and popularization of certain formal tropes – most notably the succession of movement types in Sonate da Camera and Sonate da Chiesa – was a significant part of what his followers considered the ‘Corellian’ manner.

But Corelli’s actual compositional style, his way of organizing musical thoughts into phrases and motives, is fundamentally derived from the expressive capabilities of his chosen instrument, the violin. Certain melodic patterns used to modulate and to effect sequences (e.g., chains of sevenths and fifths) basically derive from specificities of violin technique that amplify an instrument with origins primarily in dance music into one that in Corelli’s hands, could imitate the rise and fall of the sung and spoken human voice. This tension between idiomatically instrumental techniques and the evocation of the voice is the defining characteristic of Corelli’s style throughout all his surviving works and would establish the “Roman School” as the supreme measure of musical taste for generations.

For this exploration of the 18th century’s Corelli Craze, the dynamic star trio of Mahan Esfahani, Hille Perl and Michala Petri unite to trace the Roman’s influence, (sometimes in name only...) on the musical legacies of Bach, Händel and Telemann, and of course two works from the pen of the celebrated Italian Master, himself. Gramophone about the Petri/Perl/Esfahani Trio’s Bach recording: “While the tonal and expressive range of the recorder, viol and harpsichord may appear constrained in comparison to, say, flute, cello and piano, in the hands of foremost players such as these, even a relatively lightweight work such as the C major Sonata, BWV1033, comes over as the ideal demonstration of a particular facet of the composer’s style and the performers’ abilities.”

Ever since it quietly emerged on the international scene in the late ‘60s; Scandinavian jazz carved out for itself a distinctive niche. Drawing on the influence of Miles Davis and Gil Evans; Scandinavian jazz embraced a free, spacious; experimental; and contemplative aesthetic. It has also been open to modern or contemporary classical music and collaborations with European folk and ethnic-musicians. This is not OUR Recordings first journey into Scandinavian Jazz; the critically acclaimed album Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart; with legendary trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg; has proudly taken its place with other genre-defying Scandinavian jazz classics. Composer; trumpet and flugelhorn player Jakob Buchanan writes music specifically with the musicians he is working with in mind. Joining him on this important project are regular collaborators the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra, conductor Carsten Seyer-Hansen and percussionist Marilyn Mazur. Together they conjure landscapes of beauty, power and sometimes deep melancholy. Mazur’s panoply of percussion function as an emotional “basso continuo,” speaking a language built out of pure rhythm while Buchanan’s solos emerge almost like ancient cantilations from the choral/orchestral textures. The Aarhus Jazz Orchestra is carefully orchestrated; and the Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir provides an aura of ethereal beauty to this soundscape song and wind. In every way; Buchanan’s Song & Wind is a worthy successor to his earlier award-winning Requiem; (also written with Marilyn Mazur and the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra in mind); a major work; expressive and full of beauty; drawing equally on the music of the past while charting a further course into the future.

SOLO ALONE AND MORE is the first portrait album to present the young clarinet virtuoso Jonas Frølund in a more than hour-long musical journey of works showcasing the instrument beloved and ennobled by composers since Mozart’s time. For this album, Frølund selected and perfected a program of works written within the last 100 years. When planning this album, Frølund had three goals in mind — to present himself as a musician with a distinctive vision; to present the clarinet “family” from treble to bass, starting with the familiar concert instruments in Bb and A to the alto (basset) and the bass; and, finally, to present all of the above in music written during a century of New Music, spanning from immediately after WW1 to literally a few months before the recordings took place in June 2021… that is, with one exception: a certain perennially ‘new’ woodwind solo from a mid-19th century German opera that many observers regard as the mother of all Modern Music - Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. All the music presented on this album is played on a solo clarinet … again, with one exception: in the De Profundis by Simon Steen-Andersen, where the soloist multitasks on a number of percussion instruments as well. Frølund studied at The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen and at the Conservatoire de Paris and is in high demand as a soloist and chamber musician. He is co-founder of the prize-winning wind quintet V Coloris, and is currently principal clarinet of the Danish Chamber Orchestra under Adam Fischer. In 2021 he took the clarinet world by storm at the international ClarinetFest in a performance described as “electrifying,” leaving the audience wanting more, - and his performance of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with Fischer and the Danish Chamber Orchestra was featured on the BBC Radio 3 Afternoon Concert. Recorded in the DXD audio by one of Denmark’s most distinguished audio masters, Mette Due.

Olivier Messiaen’s two-and-a-half-hour piano cycle Vingt Regards sur l’enfant-Jesus is one of the most extraordinary and ground-breaking works in twentieth-century piano repertoire, joining such musical Mount Everests as Bach’s Goldberg Variations and the late Sonatas of Beethoven. That such a work was created in 1944 during the German occupation of France, and yet expresses such joy, conviction, love, and hope makes it all the more remarkable.

At more than two hours in length, the work is rarely performed in full. It takes a special kind of performer who has the physical and emotional stamina and focus to undertake such a task for it places immense technical and musical demands on the pianist.
One such musicians is Kristoffer Hyldig. KRISTOFFER HYLDIG is one of Denmark‘s leading pianists, recognized for his musicality and highly personal, sensitive approach. Known for his versatility, he is in demand as a soloist, as well as chamber musician and lied accompanist, and his concerts are often broadcasted on Danish Radio. He is a founding member of Messiaen Quartet Copenhagen, where his work comprises artistic programming as well as closely working with composers, commissioning, and premiering pieces.

Recorded in Vor Frelser’s Church, Copenhagen during one of the most severe periods of the lock down by producer, recording & balance engineer extraordinaire, Preben Iwan. The album is recorded in the immersive DXD format.

Since their debut 30 years ago, guitarists Per Pålsson and Jesper Sivebaek - the Scandinavian Guitar Duo has established themselves among the most popular
chamber ensembles in Denmark. They literally exploded on the concert scene just shortly after graduating from the Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, Southern Denmark when they won first prize in Danish Radio’s prestigious Chamber Music Competition. From that auspicious beginning their fame and accomplishments continue to grow, receiving the Sonning Foundation’s special Segovia Prize, founded by the legendary Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia as well as taking Gold or Silver in many international guitar competitions. The Duo has toured in Europe, USA and China. While impeccable in their musicianship, it is their incredible interconnectedness as a duo, performing almost as a single instrument, that has wowed critics and audiences the world over.

For their new album, Per and Jesper chose some of the pieces they love most dearly and have played for many years. From their own arrangement of Handel’s virtuosic Chaconne to the enchanting innocence of Faure’s Dolly Suites, (written by Faure for his daughter), an original from Fernando Sor, the Paganini of the guitar, and of course, a stop along the way to sunny Spain, courtesy of Enrique Granados as well. While fans of the guitar will thrill to the Duo’s effortless precision, this is an album that most fully displays the guitar as beloved broadcaster and teacher Jim McCutcheon has described as “the instrument held closest to the heart.”

All my life I have admired, studied and performed the music of the extraordinary Argentinian composer, Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992). So, when I was offered the chance to publish a whole instrumental Piazzolla album of my own for the centenary of his birth, I decided to base my tribute solely on Piazzolla titles but… with a little something extra. I decided to design a varied and comprehensive listening experience - an hour of accordion solos, instrumental duos, and pieces that I arranged for accordion and a small ensemble as a tribute to the Master of Tango! The music is all Astor but with a touch of Bjarke here and there and maybe everywhere, in fact. There are no singers involved, but Piazzolla’s music sings, and our instruments sing, and at every corner there is melancholy, tripping feet, fast figures, and an atmosphere of Buenos Aires.” (Bjarke Mortense) All of Piazzolla’s more than 750 works are inextricably bound to an essential and unmistakable Argentinian identity. His output includes an opera, music for the theatre, film scores, concertos, chamber music and songs. He loved to startle the listener by spicing up his music with chromaticism, dissonance and abrupt surprises: yet Piazzolla paid homage to Johann Sebastian Bach on almost every page he ever wrote. In commemoration of the genius of Nuevo Tango the young Danish master of the modern accordion, Bjarke Mortensen and his friends serve up a true musical banquet that will satisfy all tastes.

With his characteristic wit and quirkiness, Grammy-nominated Danish composer Poul Ruders has summed up his mission as a composer as being “To entertain, to enrich, and to disturb, not necessarily in that order.” Born in Ringsted, Denmark in 1949, Ruders achieved international fame with his opera The Handmaid‘s Tale (1996-98), a work whose aching tenderness, grotesque irony, despair and timeliness has established a permanent place in the repertoire. Ruders’ own intuitive development as a composer has enabled him to create works which manage to be strikingly modern, yet avoiding any the clichés of European modernism, but above all, imbued with the power to speak to the emotions of an audience. The current program features works spanning 30 years, beginning with the elliptical Throne (1989) for clarinet and piano and two major chamber works, the Clarinet Quintetand Piano Quartet, dating from 2014 and 2016 respectively. The Rudersdal Chamber Players, founded in 2017 by violinist Christine Pryn, are the ideal interpreters for Ruders stylistically fluid scores, finding the classical “roots” in works like the Clarinet Quintet (beautifully performed by Jonas Frølund, one of the most talented clarinet players of his generation in the world today) as well as the surprising intimacy of the Piano Quartet.

BAROQUE VIRTUOSO • Michala Petri (rcr); Lars Hannibal (lt) (period instruments) • OUR RECORDINGS 6220604 (SACD: 67:48)


VITALI Chaconne. TELEMANN Sonata in d, TWV 41:d4. BACH Sonata in F, BWV 1033. VIVALDI/CHÉDEVILLE Sonata in G, RV 59. CORELLI La Folia, op. 5/12. TARTINI Sonata, “Devil’s Trill.” HANDEL Sonata in B?, HWV 377


This disc presents some of the most beautiful and most intricate music of the Baroque era. Tomaso Vitali may or may not have composed the Chaconne in G Minor that was credited to him in the 19th century by violinist Ferdinand David. Nonetheless, the work has been very popular with violinists. Jascha Heifetz played it in his first New York recital, for example. Here, Petri and Hannibal play it with great care and considerable bravura. Although it was written to be played by amateurs, the artists on this CD play an intricate decorated version that no amateur is likely ever to attempt. Needless to say, it charms the ear.


The Flute Sonata in C Major was originally thought to have been written by Johann Sebastian Bach. It may, however, have been composed by one of his sons in collaboration with the father. In any case, the scintillating four-movement work has been transposed to the key of F so it can be played on the recorder and it is rendered with glorious virtuosity by Petri with Hannibal providing the well-balanced continuo.


Antonio Vivaldi, the red-headed priest of Venice, was a very popular composer. For that reason he had many imitators. One of them was the French composer Nicolas Chédeville, who passed off some of his own music as having been written by the Venetian. The Chédeville/Vivaldi Sonata in G opens with a simple Largo that caresses the ear. It is followed with a truly Baroque Allegro in which Petri and Hannibal play with abandon. The Pastorale is an invitation to enjoy nature, possibly on a pleasant spring day. Then it is followed by a catchy Allegro finale that seems to invite the listener to a musical party. Petri and Hannibal serve it up with gusto.


Perhaps the best-known works on this disc are the Corelli La Folia and the Tartini “Devil’s Trill” Sonata. Both are played with intelligence and precision, but that is true of all the works on this disc. The Corelli gives us a memorable tune with which to stay grounded for a few moments. Tartini made up a great public relations story of having heard the devil play the trill he put in the sonata. Petri plays all the lustrous silvery decorations that illuminate the background provided by Hannibal’s lute. The disc finale is Handel’s B?-Major Sonata, with its memorable songlike base.


It’s a beautiful program and every bit of it is magnificently rendered. The balance between the instruments is excellent and the sound gives the feeling of a fine, small concert hall.


FANFARE: Maria Nockin

This is not the first time Michala Petri has juxtaposed recorder works from Britain and her home country, Denmark. A quarter of a century ago she combines soloes, duos and trios – with other Petri family members (RCA, 5/89,- long out of print) – by Arnold, Asger Christiansen, Holmboe, others from Germany and Norway, plus the wonderful Sonatina Gordon Jacob wrote for her in 1983 - also included here. None of the other works has been repeated from that earlier disc and of the composers only Britten did not write especially for her….

The warm heart of this superbly played programme is the Sonata (1980) by Holmboe, who, like Arnold and Jacob, wrote several works for Petri. Like all late Holmboe, light and peace are the pervading features of the three movement. A wonderful advert for this instrumental pairing and for virtuosity in general. Superbly engineered sound.

– Guy Richards, Gramophone [5/2015]

Hard on the heels of the marvelous Arcangelo Corelli sonata CD from this duo, featured in Fanfare 38:4, is this delightful fraternal twin of a release…. [I]t goes without saying that anything this superstar pairing puts its hands to will be extraordinary…. Recommended? Without a doubt! It is a wonderful program, imaginatively presented.

– Ronald E. Grames, Fanfare [3/2015]

TELEMANN Sonatas for Recorder and Basso Continuo: in F, TWV 41:F1 ; in B?, TWV 41:B3 ; in f, TWV 41:f1; in C, TWV 41:C2; in d, TWV 41:d4 ; in C, TWV 41:C5 • Michala Petri (rcr); Anthony Newman (hpd) • OUR RECORDINGS 8.226909 (44:40)


Don’t be fooled by the label, OUR Recordings; the numbering system and the distribution shows that it is part of the vast and expanding Naxos empire. That being said, it is barely a small province therein, for there is a fair amount of material that has come out under their auspices. When one can bag a renowned recorder virtuoso such as Michaela Petri, then one can expect good things.


It is an oddity, however, that as prolific a composer as Telemann was, he paid rather scanter attention in his huge output of solo chamber works to the humble recorder. To be sure, solos for the instrument abound in the trio sonatas, concertos, and other ensemble pieces, but it seems that he preferred the traverse in terms of sound and musical possibilities. Actual sonatas for recorder and continuo, where they are not part of the practice of generic woodwind pieces, are few. Apparently only six such beasts have survived (though of course one might suggest that there are others out there waiting to be found and identified). These are four from the collection Der getreue Musik-Meister from about 1728 or 1729, and a further pair from the Essercizii Musici , a rather comprehensive gathering of sundry chamber works (sonatas and trios) that Telemann published in 1740. Given that they are literally buried within these compendiums, and since these may be of a more pedagogical focus, it is no wonder that they have emerged only piecemeal from the Telemann shadows.


The two works from the 1740s, in D Minor (TWV 41:d4) and C Major (TWV 41:C5), reflect the composer’s attempts to inculcate himself into the newly emerging galant style, even though the former has the four-movement format of his Baroque chamber works and indeed sounds like it dates from a couple of decades earlier. Here the opening arioso is suitable plaintive, while the following Allegro spins out the small motives like beams of light, dimming ever so slightly when Telemann inserts a sudden minor key harmony. The short Grave could have been written by Vivaldi. The latter is a more advanced three-movement work, though the opening is a gentle arioso that appears floating above a pedal tone. The second is a Lamento, and the third is a lively Hornpipe, a type of music of which Telemann, living in the port city of Hamburg, was fond. The other sonatas seem to push the boundaries of the instrument in terms of flexibility and range, indicating that whoever was supposed to play them really needed to know the instrument. There is pathos, such as the opening movement of the F-Minor Sonata (TWV 41:f1), with its plaintive calls, or the very Bachian second slow movement of the B?-Major Sonata (TWV 41:B3) with its meandering line that takes awhile to get to a cadence. The second movements are generally tour de forces with regards to recorder virtuosity, and in places such as jaunty opening of the F-Major Sonata (TWV 41:F1), which seems to rush off with display, or the second movement of the other C-Major Sonata (TWV 41:C2) runs like a perpetual motion machine with just a hint of hornpipe in the flashy theme.


Michaela Petri’s playing is, as always, superb. Her technical ability to change registers so that one thinks there is another instrument in the background is astounding, as always, and she phrases her slower movements to bring out the lingering emotion of the often floating lines. Her accompanist, Anthony Newman, also no stranger to Telemann, is the perfect partner, his realizations keeping pace with but never overshadowing Petri. I do think I detect a cello also going along with the line, but alas no name is mentioned in the notes. In short, this is a terrific disc and one every Baroque music collector ought to have in their collection. It demonstrates that her reputation as one if not the premiere recorder player is well-deserved.


FANFARE: Bertil van Boer