Michala Petri is one of the world’s leading recorder virtuosos. She has done as much as anyone living to popularise the instrument, and revive and expand its repertoire. In 1992, she formed an artistic partnership with her husband, the guitarist Lars Hannibal. They have been delighting audiences around the world ever since with their masterly playing and the witty commentaries with which they spice their recitals. The long-neglected recorder has enjoyed a significant revival over the last 80 years with early music enthusiasts leading the way and contemporary composers writing for the instrument.

Friday’s concert included an eclectic mixture of pieces, some composed for recorder and guitar, others transcriptions of works written for other instruments. Recorders of different size and type made their appearance during the evening.

A high point was a 2,000-year-old Chinese piece in which the recorder seems to lament for a lost love while the guitar provides consoling support. This was wonderfully communicative music, providing a vivid sense of connection with the distant past. An arrangement of three movements from Piazolla’s Histoire du Tango was another highly successful piece. Tango, as Hannibal pointed out, was first performed on guitars and flutes. As compelling was a transcription of Lalo’s Norwegian Fantasy, a genial and colourful work written for violin and orchestra.

Some of the other pieces in the programme were more lightweight, essentially vehicles for virtuoso display, including a set of variations on a Danish folksong composed by Petri herself. The range of effects she produces from the instrument is impressive.

The enthusiastic applause of a packed hall prompted two encores – the second a witty piece called the Wagtail and the Cuckoo from a suite by a contemporary Danish composer. Petri switched between two different-sized recorders, representing the two birds with comic effect – a perfect ending to an entertaining evening.