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Franz LISZT (1811-1886)
Etudes d’exéction transcendante d’après Paganini S 141 (1838 rev 1851)
Tre Sonetti del Petrarca S 161 (1839-46)
Two Legéndes S175 (1863)
 Sergio
Fiorentino, piano
Recorded Guildford Civic Hall August 1965 (Paganini Etudes) and Petrarch
Sonnets 1 and 2 (August 1963); Greenwich Borough Hall January 1962
(remainder)
CONCERT ARTIST/FIDELIO
CACD 9202-2 [64.40]
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Things are hotting up in the Fiorentino-Concert
Artist/Fidelio stakes. Not content with releasing a long delayed and
previously unissued set of the Transcendental Etudes they now continue with
the Paganini Etudes and bring the recital to over an hour’s worth of
remarkable pianism with the three Petrarch Sonnets and the Two Legéndes.
Recording were made in the Greenwich Borough Hall and in the Guildford Civic
Hall between 1962 and 1965 and have been digitally remastered to a very good
standard. These are never going to be sonically spectacular recordings but
to those who value superior musicianship there is a huge amount to admire
here, as ever with Fiorentino.
His playing of the Paganini Etudes is broadly consonant with his playing on
that earlier disc of the Transcendental Etudes; greatly impressive if on a
very slightly less majestic level. I find his structural control and his
humanity enormously persuasive. Pyrotechnics are irrelevant for him unless
technique and virtuosity are made to serve the curve and dramatic
interiority of the score. In the G Minor etude, the tremolo study, his
powers of structural concentration are immediately apparent. Comparison
with, say, the pre-War recordings of another legendary Lisztian, Claudio
Arrau, show that whilst Arrau is abrupt and bursting with tensile strength
and quick reflexes, Fiorentino has a deep-rooted control of each Etude’s
internal and external dynamic and that his are readings of maturity and
depth. His "integrationist" aesthetic is illustrated best in the first study
where he refuses to engage in surface glitter, preferring the more lasting
benefits of a long line. In the octave study, No 2 in E Flat, he is
considerably less overtly theatrical than Arrau and also lighter on his
feet, as it were, but this is not to deny him those moments of glittering
clarity that so frequently illuminate Fiorentino’s playing. He doesn’t stint
the drama but he does make it less barrenly brazen. His quasi-operatic
flourishes here are entirely apposite, flecked with an admixture of wit. The
third of the Etudes, La Campanella, shows the stunning clarity of his right
hand, the trills exquisitely even and "hammered" with poise. His intimacy is
a marvel even if I did feel the conclusion rather too dry and unalluring.
The E Major Etude receives a reading of excellence, no striving for effect,
the weight of hand distribution expertly accomplished. La Chasse lasts 2.41
in Fiorentino’s hands, roughly the same as Arrau but Fiorentino manages to
create a greater sense of narrative space; he’s not as rhythmically
incursive as Arrau, instead preferring a more mellow, more leisurely sense
of the work’s syntax, in terms of its drama. He is less theatrical, less
quicksilver, but equally is better at bringing out the flute and horn
sonorities of the score. In the Theme and Variations finale one once more
sees the essential rightness of Fiorentino’s approach to Liszt, which is one
that remained constant throughout his career. His understanding and
illumination of structural cohesiveness is second to none; this is never
pedantic or, in the worst sense, didactic. Rather it is a constant
commentary on and revelation of the spine of the music.
The Petrarch Sonnets were recorded in August 1963. In the first, No 104, one
can explore as much as Liszt’s writing, Fiorentino’s own gift of a
simplicity born of experience and understanding. In No 47 we can witness the
way in which he coalesces the wide variety of moods. When Horowitz recorded
it his huge Corinthian columns of bass notes and his visceral, powerful
passion engorged the piece with outsize drama. Undeniably thrilling though
it was this is simply not Fiorentino’s way; he prefers a more horizontal
delineation of the piece, less overtly passionate, seeing it as a structure
of semi-classical precision through which animation pulses and grows. So too
in the last of the three Sonnets where he mines the music for a remarkable
sense of interior life, an ability given to few. The Deux Legéndes date from
1863 and derive from St Francis of Assisi preaching to the birds and St
Francis of Paolo walking on the water. Fiorentino thrillingly animates the
former, with its colourful and suggestive imitative writing and in the
latter derives great layers of nobility and passion from the waves incident
and completes this Liszt recital as he began it – with concentration,
passion controlled through intellect, virtuosity subsumed to the work’s
meaning and characterful understanding.
Once more Humphrey Searle’s notes grace the booklet and once again admirers
of this remarkable pianist can investigate his ever-growing legacy with
confidence and undimmed admiration.
Jonathan Woolf
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