Michala Petri & Chen Yue: A Dialogue Between East & West
May 1st, 2009 | 7:11 am est | Uncle Dave Lewis

 
Recorder virtuoso Michala Petri is a long established phenomenon in the classical music world, and as a performer she is quite astounding. While the average enthusiast would be happy to get a decent tune out of the recorder, Petri can pull off ripping glissandi that can make one's hair stand on end or find shades of dynamics on the instrument one would not think possible. While many of the classical music ingenues who first appeared circa 1980 have moved on to other pursuits, Michala Petri remains busier than ever. In recent years, she and her husband, classical guitar virtuoso Lars Hannibal, have been running a label called OUR Recordings, which has swiftly established itself as one of the world's premier artist-led recording concerns. Petri and Hannibal travel the world as a performing duo, and in China, Hannibal discovered Chen Yue, who is to Chinese bamboo flutes what Petri is to the European, wooden variety. To record Chen Yue and Michala Petri together, an entire repertoire had to be created, as there was no standing literature combining recorder and Xiao or Dizi. Nevertheless, the association has thus far produced two outstanding discs, Spirits and Dialogue. In our dialogue with Michala Petri, AMG's Uncle Dave Lewis spoke with Michala Petri and Chen Yue via phone from Denmark.


AMG: Michala, you have been quite busy lately, releasing both the Dialogue CD with Chen Yue and this in-concert album with Kremerata Baltica celebrating your 50th birthday. Not all women — particularly among classical music artists — are quite so forthcoming with their ages. What led to you to come forward with that information in such a public forum?

Michala Petri: I always enjoy having a reason to celebrate something, especially when it involves celebrating along with musicians I like very much, like the Kremerata Baltica. I'm very down to earth, and I'm the kind of person who doesn't mind accepting things they way they are — so I'm 50 years old, that's just the way it is! I would never try to put across myself to be something that I'm not, and actually, in all things possible I feel honesty is best. It gives more room for experiencing real life.

AMG: Previously on your OUR Recordings label you have done an album with Chen Yue entitled Spirits, which is largely made up of melodies drawn from both Danish and Chinese traditions. Where did you get the idea for Dialogue, which consists of contemporary music from both Denmark and China?

MP: The idea was Hannibal's, and we also got some help from Joshua Cheek in Ann Arbor, who wrote the lovely notes used in the album. Hannibal had from the start the idea in mind to ask many composers from each country to each write a short piece for the two flutes — but was told that the Chinese needed more than three minutes to get into a mood of a piece! But ultimately it ended up being a program of ten compositions — five from each country: five Chinese and five from Denmark. Then we contacted the Royal Danish Academy of Music and the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and they assisted us in selecting the ten composers.

AMG: How did you meet Chen Yue?

MP: That was through Hannibal. He had met her at a concert he played in China and he had also made the resolution that — even though we play different instruments — that we essentially had the same style and it would match. The concept of East-West cooperation, which is the motivating principle behind both Spirits and Dialogue, is all Hannibal's. Chen Yue and I didn't meet until we both played a concert, with me and a lot of other musicians, in Beijing in a special occasion commemorating 100 years of cooperation between Denmark and China, the longest uninterrupted cooperation China has had with any country. I have learned to trust Hannibal's judgment in these things. He has an excellent sense of what might be unique to offer on classical recordings, yet he also knows how to measure the amount of risk involved in a given project. Moreover, I have learned very much in this project from Chen's way of playing; we learn a lot from each other. The idea of time in European music is very strict. You learn to be very precise in your attack and in holding notes for only so long. But playing with Chen I have learned to be more in the moment without stretching towards the goal.

AMG: Well Chen, that sounds like a good lead-in for bringing you into the conversation.

Chen Yue: Thank you, and you will need to excuse me, Uncle Dave, I am still learning English. But I, too, have learned a lot from playing with Michala. I think she is a wonderful musician. In playing together, Michala learned to be freer — and I learned to more strict rhythmically.

AMG: Have you had any reaction yet to Dialogue in China?

CY: I think it was a very interesting experience with both albums, showing the different cultures and different ways of thinking. With Spirits, we didn't know if it would work, but people back in China were very pleasantly surprised. They love Spirits very much and it can move listeners in China to tears, it is so emotional. With Dialogue, not so much, but they understand that it is a professional album, that it is more exclusive. It is for people who know and love classical music already.

AMG: When I was ready to listen to Dialogue, I was wondering how I would be able to get through more than an hour of what is essentially unaccompanied flute music, all in a high range, but in the end the album didn't have any trouble at all holding my attention. It seemed like the two of you were striking out on your own path, creating your own music from scratch with fresh instrumental combinations, like Harry Partch did.

MP: I read your review and was very glad about it, because with reviews that is the one thing that is important to me. It is not so important to me whether you like the album or not, but I do care as to whether a reviewer understands what it is that I am doing. You managed to enter our way of thinking.

AMG: How do you feel the music on Dialogue is different from the standard Western repertoire for high instruments, such as, say, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach's flute duets?

MP: I haven't heard those, I am ashamed to say, but I know what you mean. Some that I know well and play are the Sonatas en Canon of Georg Philipp Telemann. I would say that the difference is that in the absolutely traditional European literature you try and make the two instruments sound as similar as possible. The idea here — and we were not sure that it could succeed — was to emphasize the different instruments from the different cultures and not to want to make them sound similar. It is a little like my interest in comparing the approach of other opposites, like theology and psychology. They are very different fields, but I am interested in both, and by understanding them I can better express what I can feel.

AMG: Of course, the idea of collaboration is not new to you. I remember back in my days of classical retail selling the fine discs you made for BMG in collaboration with pianist Keith Jarrett. However, now you and Lars Hannibal are now running your own label, OUR Recordings. How is this different from your experience working as a major label classical artist?

MP: It is naturally very different in recent years. Back when I was at BMG — and with Philips before that — there was one A&R person that I would deal with, and when I had something that I wanted to do I would take it to them and see if there was interest. That wasn't a bad system, but there were natural limits to it and sometimes, disappointments. Now it is very different. I am completely free in my creativity and do not have to think around another person in order to get something done, although we do have to find a way to get the money up for it. Otherwise, it's wonderful being so free, and very inspiring.

AMG: Any word about future projects?

MP: Nothing in the coming months, but in the fall we will have an album called Café Vienna, which is music for recorder and guitar from Mozart's time. You will be surprised. There is quite a lot of nice music for these instruments from that era — we found a beautiful set of variations on the national anthem, God Save the Queen and the French Marseillaise. For next year, I have some very exciting plans for a recording, though I am not going to say anything specific about that right now! It is a project done only from my own wish to make it — a great luxury!

AMG: We haven't been seeing a lot of European touring artists here in the States lately. Michala, is there any chance we'll be seeing you on these shores?

MP: Oh yes! I am appearing in New York City with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on December 9, a pure Baroque concert with popular recorder music. I am looking forward to meeting up with several musician friends that I haven't seen in years. And I will also be playing at a music festival in Minneapolis next summer.

AMG: I will direct the same question to you, Chen Yue — any prospects for an appearance in the U.S.?

CY: Well, you know I have played in the United States, back in 2006 with the China National Symphony Orchestra on tour. I travel quite often in other countries and maybe I will be able to come back — I don't know, but it may come.

Michala Petri & Chen Yue - Pernille Louise Sejlund: Butterfly Rain

Michala Petri & Chen Yue - Siqin Chaoketu: Yan Gui (The wild goose comes back home)

Michala Petri, Kremerata Baltica - Mozart: Andante in C major, K. 315

Michala Petri, Kremerata Baltica - Vivaldi: Flautino Concerto in C, RV 443

Chen Yue - Three Variations on Plum Blossom


Posted in Classical Corner