Naudot

Denmark's Michala Petri has continued to dominate the modest but persistent recorder "scene" despite the emergence of a host of younger recorder players from the ranks of Dutch-trained historical-instrument specialists. Collecting a group of her 1970s and 1980s recordings, as has been done here, is an eminently justifiable enterprise, for it was these recordings whose laserlike intonation, whip-smart ornamentation, and all-around attractiveness that caught the attention of listeners in the first place. Petri uncovered and recorded a good deal of Baroque repertory for the instruments, recording it with the likes of England's Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

This collection of baroque hurdy-gurdy music represents, in a way, that instrument's comeback after a century of neglect and scorn (although, one presumes, that back then the scorn was at least being heaped upon the actual hurdy-gurdy, and not the glorified music box that has usurped its name in the current popular imagination). In the medieval period, the hurdy-gurdy was depicted as being played by angels as the appropriate accompaniment to the singing of the Psalms. However, its association with peasants (not to mention the limited range of the instrument in the pre-baroque era) tainted its musical reputation considerably. Relegated to an attention-getting device of blind beggars, the hurdy-gurdy was a solidly lower class instrument.

This collection of baroque hurdy-gurdy music represents, in a way, that instrument's comeback after a century of neglect and scorn (although, one presumes, that back then the scorn was at least being heaped upon the actual hurdy-gurdy, and not the glorified music box that has usurped its name in the current popular imagination). In the medieval period, the hurdy-gurdy was depicted as being played by angels as the appropriate accompaniment to the singing of the Psalms. However, its association with peasants (not to mention the limited range of the instrument in the pre-baroque era) tainted its musical reputation considerably. Relegated to an attention-getting device of blind beggars, the hurdy-gurdy was a solidly lower class instrument.