Sergio Fiorentino’s gifts were evident from the beginning. Born in Naples in 1927, he entered the Conservatorio di Musica San Pietro a Majella in Naples at the age of 11. With competition victories under his belt by the end of the 1940s, Fiorentino’s reputation spread outside of Italy, culminating in an acclaimed Carnegie Hall debut in October 1953. While on tour in South America a year later, Fiorentino sustained serious injuries in a plane crash and was not able to return to concertising for another four years. By then he had taken over a teaching post at the Naples Conservatory. From the late 1950s to the late 1960s he amassed a considerable number of recordings for small labels associated with William Barrington-Coupe, who later gained notoriety for masterminding the Joyce Hatto scandal.

Fiorentino had largely retreated from public performance when the German school teacher and record collector Ernst Lumpe reached out to him in 1989 and convinced him to return to the stage. Concerts in small German venues ensued in 1992 and 1993, launching newfound interest in Fiorentino’s artistry, followed by recording sessions in Berlin between 1994 and 1997, supervised by Lumpe. Appearances in the US, France and Taiwan followed. Fiorentino’s sudden death following a stroke in August 1998 thwarted future recording plans and tours.

In 2011 Piano Classics began a Fiorentino Edition that yielded four multi-disc volumes of the pianist’s studio recordings, ranging from the early 1950s to his final Berlin sessions. Brilliant Classics has now consolidated these volumes on 26 CDs. The booklet preserves original annotations from the Piano Classics boxes, while discographical details are relegated to the backs of the CD wallets.

Discs 1-10 encompass Fiorentino’s 1994-97 Berlin studio sessions produced by Ernst Lumpe under the pseudonym ‘Remus Platen’. According to Lumpe, Fiorentino usually played each piece twice without interruption, with only rare need for patches. These are by far the best-sounding Fiorentino recordings. The Bach selections exemplify the grand Romantic manner at its best. Fiorentino pulls out all the dynamic and colouristic stops in the Fifth French Suite, while recognising the music’s dance roots. Not since Egon Petri’s heyday have Busoni’s massive piano transformations of the D major and E flat major Organ Preludes and Fugues sounded so noble and unclangy. In Rachmaninov’s suite based on three movements from Bach’s E major Violin Partita, Fiorentino relishes the serpentine inner voices and decadent harmonies with relaxed virtuosity. Rachmaninov’s two Piano Sonatas may not match Alexis Weissenberg’s gaunt sonorities and galvanic fury, but Fiorentino’s warm, full-bodied tone and patiently spun paragraphs convey a symphonic grandeur. Likewise, Scriabin’s First, Second and Fourth Sonatas have a firm nobility.

Great Rachmaninov interpreters often seem equally at home in Schumann (Horowitz is an obvious example), and Fiorentino is no exception. His songful, perfectly proportioned Arabeske is on par with Arthur Rubinstein’s priceless live 1961 Carnegie Hall version. Fiorentino’s G minor Sonata, Op 22, was never going to outrun thoroughbreds like Argerich or Hamelin, yet somehow he arrives at the proverbial finish line first! The pianist’s Berlin account of Schumann’s Carnaval impressively retains the insouciance and swagger of his two earlier recordings. Although Fiorentino’s Schumann C major Fantasie exists in several live traversals, the 1996 studio version not only takes top honours but remains my top recommendation for this oft-recorded masterpiece. He hits upon ideal tempos for each of the three movements, and builds the sonorities from the bottom up, paying subtle attention to bass lines and inner voices. The risky skips at the end of the second movement emerge cumulatively from the context of what came before, rather than as an athletic stunt. One can say something similar in regard to the celebrated octave passages in the Liszt Sonata and ‘Funérailles’, or the sonorous climaxes in the three large-scale Franck works. And what natural, unselfregarding and heartfelt Schubert playing we get in the first book of Impromptus and the sonatas in A major, D664, A minor, D537 and B flat major, D960.

Although more incisive and texturally varied recordings of Prokofiev’s Eighth Sonata can be heard from Richter and Gilels, Fiorentino’s careful scaling of dynamics and climaxes throughout each movement of Chopin’s B minor Sonata add up to one of this overplayed work’s most cohesive recorded interpretations. I wish there were more of Fiorentino’s full-bodied Debussy beyond the Suite Bergamasque and the two Arabesques. Yet given Fiorentino’s fleet and sparkling Liszt ‘Gnomenreignen’, I’m surprised by his sedate Moszkowski F major Étude and rather nondescript Scarlatti E major and D minor Sonatas.

Discs 11-15 contain Fiorentino’s complete studio Liszt recordings (minus the 1990s Berlin material), all dating from 1958-67, and originally issued on Fidelio, Delta, Concert Artist and Saga, and remastered mainly from Ernst Lumpe’s LP copies (the master tapes are missing). Like his older colleagues Claudio Arrau and Jorge Bolet, Fiorentino took Liszt seriously and channeled even his most impetuous and flashy playing towards musical ends. The Hungarian Rhapsodies (Nos 2, 6, 7, 8 10, 11, 12 13 and 15) come across as being more three-dimensional pieces than the virtuoso fluff for which they are wrongly dismissed. Fiorentino resurrects the rarely heard and admittedly overwrought Grande Fantasie de bravoure sur la Clochette de Paganini, and plays it as if it’s the greatest thing that Liszt ever wrote. Of the two Liszt concertos, No 1 gets a better accompaniment. Yet Fiorentino taps into the enigmatic sound world of the myriad late pieces, and makes light of Ab Irato’s swashbuckling technical hurdles. These earlier readings of the two Ballades and ‘Fúnerailles’ are comparably mercurial to the Berlin recordings with regard to tempo extremes, yet technically fresher.

Volume 3 of Piano Classics’ Fiorentino Edition was an all-Rachmaninov two-disc set. One disc featured the complete Preludes, apparently recorded on 22 September 1963 in a single session with no retakes. The second disc contained the two sonatas, filled out with five Rachmaninov transcriptions, recorded in 1962. By jettisoning the second disc, to avoid duplicating the later Berlin accounts of the sonatas, Brilliant Classics have lost the exemplary performances of the transcriptions. But at least we have the Preludes, which receive vividly characterised, passionate and insightfully voiced performances, even if the sonics are not the greatest.

Lastly, discs 17-26 constitute Fiorentino’s complete non-Liszt Fidelio, Delta and Concert Artist releases (his complete Saga recordings can be found in a wonderfully remastered original jacket style edition on Rhine Classics RH-033). Those who respond positively to the pianist’s ‘old-school’ Berlin Bach will find comparable enchantment in his Italian Concerto, Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue and the Busoni-ised D minor Chaconne. Yet Fiorentino is under par in Chopin’s Sonata No 2, and suffers from heavy-handed orchestral support in Mozart’s C major Concerto, K467. Of the four ‘named’ Beethoven Sonatas, I prefer Fiorentino’s Appassionata and Waldstein to his Pathétique and Moonlight. Is the pianist taking the composer’s long pedal markings in the Waldstein’s Rondo on faith, or is are we merely hearing the resonant ambience?

By contrast, a drier acoustic underlines Fiorentino’s forthright energy throughout Schumann’s Faschingsschwank aus Wien. Although certain tempo choices in Kinderszenen may be unorthodox, I’d hardly deem the performance ‘intermittently crazed’, as one colleague claimed. And while some of Fiorentino’s fast tempos in Schumann’s Carnaval and Études symphoniques border on glib, I look on such caffeinated pianism as a guilty pleasure. No qualms concerning the Brahms Handel and Paganini Variations, which stand out for Fiorentino’s unflappable mastery, poise and imaginative inflections. Those accustomed to the structural rigour and unified tempo relationships in more classically orientated interpretations of the Handel Variations may be bothered by Fiorentino’s treating each variation as a separate entity, but I find this approach rather refreshing. His super-speedy Mendelssohn ‘Spinning Song’ is clearly modelled on Rachmaninov’s interpretation, from the pungent accents and little luftpause in the theme to the elongated opening vamp. Borodin’s A flat major Scherzo also scampers beyond the legal speed limit, yet without derailing. Given the boxy sonics and limited dynamics, the Rachmaninov Études-tableaux, Op 33, may (to paraphrase Mark Twain’s quip about Wagner’s music) be better than they sound.

The final five discs are devoted to Chopin. The Ballades and Scherzos abound in individual touches: the G minor Ballade’s rhapsodic opening, a strikingly contrasted F major Ballade, unpredictable dramatic rhetoric throughout the Third and Fourth Scherzos. Of the two books of Chopin’s Études, Op 25 elicits more consistently satisfying readings, but what a wild ride through Op 10 No 12 (the Revolutionary), complete with (inauthentic) interlocking octaves in the final bars. In the Waltzes, the pianist arguably overdoses on fanciful rubatos, voicings and agogics, but if you like that sort of thing then Fiorentino’s your man. It’s impossible to predict how Fiorentino will approach each of the Poloniases, but certain details stick in my mind: Op 26 No 1’s unusually broad opening, Op 40 No 1’s amplified octaves, Op 44’s somewhat impatient exposition, plus intriguingly unsettled extremes of tempo and dynamics in the Polonaise-fantasie. Interestingly, Fiorentino plays Chopin’s posthumously published youthful Poloniases relatively straight.

Given the variable sonics of the 1950s and ’60s material, some collectors may wish to focus on the digitally recorded Berlin recordings via download and streaming platforms. However, ardent connoisseurs and admirers of Fiorentino who missed any or all of the Piano Classics or APR releases should acquire this collection while they can. In the meantime, Brilliant Classics, please make the missing 1962 Rachmaninov transcriptions available in some way, shape or form.

The Recordings
 Sergio Fiorentino: The Legacy
 Brilliant Classics 97423 (26 CDs)

This feature originally appeared in the SUMMER 2025 issue of International Piano – Subscribe Today