This is not a selection you will encounter on one CD all that often, simply because it places a pair of genuine recorder pieces alongside two works borrowed from the flute repertoire. I do think this is something that might be made clear to potential purchasers on the outside of the box (indeed, it is barely admitted to inside), but in the end it does not matter very much, since both the music and the performances are of such high quality that I can’t really imagine anyone complaining for long (Bach’s ghost included). Michala Petri, as always, displays a mastery of her instrument which is breathtaking. Every line she plays is beautifully even, nimble and crisp, and if you can do that in this flawlessly constructed music then you have won half the battle already. Other recorder players might bring out a little more of the playful side of the Telemann perhaps, and in the two Bach flute pieces – the Triple Concerto and Second Orchestral Suite – some of the warmth of the baroque flute is undoubtedly missing, but on the other hand there is an extra clarity of texture to be enjoyed here instead.
The support Petri gains from the Berlin Baroque Soloists is first-class. There are times when even an experienced ear would have trouble detecting that these are modern strings: in his solos, leader Rainer Kussmaul manages to draw from his violin a delicacy and flexibility of bowing and phrasing which one normally associates with a baroque instrument, and the string ensemble as a whole brings a consistent lightness and liveliness of touch which most modern orchestras seem unable to achieve in this kind of music without the deadening hand of unremitting non legato. Only the sounds of the oboe and trumpet in the Second Brandenburg Concerto give the game away, though in the latter’s case as much by the ease with which it trips through Bach’s stratospheric lines as anything else. In short this is exemplary and heartening baroque-playing on modern instruments, the wonder of it only being increased by the knowledge that this orchestra is made up of members of the Berlin Philharmonic.'