FANFARE Magazine Mar/Apr 2026 | Featured Reviews - Baroque for soprano saxophone and piano
Fanfare Magazine | The #1 Classical Music Magazine “for serious record collectors”
Baroque for soprano saxophone and piano (Navona Records 2025) received “recommended” featured reviews in the Mar/Apr 2026 issue 49:4 of Fanfare magazine.
Here are some excerpts.
“Greco plays the various wind-based pieces with distinction. His lovely and pure tone, shorn of vibrato, complements the artist’s impressive breath control and facility in rapid passagework. Rubato is sparingly applied, and Greco’s ornamentation is both inventive and tasteful. I found Po Sim Head’s piano realization of Marcello’s string orchestra in the Oboe Concerto rather heavy-handed and inflexible. For the remainder of the disc, Head’s playing is consistently sensitive, fluent, and tonally attractive. I had my doubts about a Bach Cello Suite performed on soprano saxophone, but Greco’s solo renditions of the two Menuetts and Gigue from the Suite in G, BWV 1007 might be his finest playing on the disc. Greco revels in the music’s vibrance and beauty, and his rich tone impressively fills the musical line. Greco and Head’s charming rendition of Couperin’s Le Dodo is a fitting encore. The artists are captured in lovely recorded sound. A gratifying recital. Recommended.” Ken Meltzer
“But if you dig deeper, this performance is much more authentic than you might think.”
“Greco is not shy about adding embellishments, which is fully in line with common Baroque practices. His ornamentations are frequent but never excessive and always tasteful, seamlessly weaving into the music’s flow. For me, the highlight of the album was Telemann’s Sonata in A Minor, TWV 41:a3, originally written for oboe. It follows the standard sonata da chiesa form with four movements in a slow-fast-slow-fast pattern. The two slow movements, with their flowing, sorrowful melodies, are perfectly suited for the mellow timbre of the soprano saxophone, and the two fast movements offer a delightful and sometimes quirky interplay between the instruments. The disc also includes two movements from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 played on saxophone without accompaniment, and it ends with a delightful Berceuse en Rondeau by François Couperin, drawn from his Pièces de clavecin, Livre III, Ordre XV. The recorded sound is rich and clear. The balance slightly favors the saxophone over the piano, which is expected and not objectionable. Overall, this is a highly enjoyable release that should appeal to both saxophone aficionados and Baroque music enthusiasts. My only complaint is the rather short playing time (just over 49 minutes). Strongly recommended.” Anton Angelo
