MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS

Sergio Fiorentino; The Berlin Recordings
Sergio Fiorentino (piano)
rec. Berlin, 1994-97
Track listing below
PIANO CLASSICS PCLM0033 [10 CDs: 11:30:00]

Experience Classicsonline



 
Sergio Fiorentino’s Berlin recordings were made toward the end of his life, between 1994 and 1997. The performances that make up the ten discs of this remarkable set - remarkable for its musical generosity, tonal warmth and freedom from dogmatism - last eleven hours, give or take, and will surely be welcomed by admirers of the art of the great Italian pianist, whose death in 1998 ended the sessions definitively.
 
Some, perhaps all, have certainly been issued before by APR in single volumes, but to collect them in this way is to cut the Gordion knot of discographical confusion. Those who may have found his earlier recordings rather aloof - he recorded, for example, on LP for William Barrington-Coupe’s label under a bizarre menagerie of pseudonyms (Paul Procopolis most famously) - will not find the same reserve here. They will certainly not find it in his Schumann, where the G minor Sonata is taken at supremely well judged tempi, and with dextrous pedalling and a real elevation of spirit in the slow movement The Fantasie is perhaps less convincing, but maybe the recording exaggerated something of a lack of dynamic shaping.
 
Fiorentino wasn’t necessarily known for his Bach but I found it spellbinding to listen to him. True, he does what many have done and fills in bass lines; true, too, his approach to tempi is inconsistent and sometimes daringly slow; for ‘daringly’ critical listeners will substitute the word ‘terribly’. Taking a quarter of an hour over the Allemande of the Fourth Partita is, even I have to admit, something of a liability, but so thoughtful are the results elsewhere that one must follow him, even if one doesn’t necessarily sanction the results. His articulation in Bach is marvellously clear and his tonal resources are vividly intact.
 
Fiorentino’s B minor Chopin sonata is a powerfully sculpted affair, architecturally cogent, but sporting some octave editorialising that won’t be to all tastes. He is at his most convincing in the long paragraphs of the sonata, and manages to drive the music onwards without rushing. Russian repertoire wasn’t neglected. His Rachmaninoff D minor and B flat minor Sonatas don’t teem with Slavic intensity but instead retain integrity by virtue of their demanding approach and structural integrity. Fiorentino doesn’t stint climactic moments here; he can thunder with the best of them. He essays three Scriabin sonatas, repertoire that many will simply not recognise as having been in his purview, which is to underestimate the breadth of that repertory, as well as Fiorentino’s questing intelligence. He plays the First, Second and Fourth sonatas with iron control, but always with a brain seeking to make structural sense of the music, whether it darts impressionistically, Chopinesquely or mystically. This is not Scriabin playing in the galvanic Russian way - but then which way is the ‘Russian’ way? Sofronitzky, Neuhaus, Feinberg, Richter, Gilels? So, too, one finds Prokofiev’s Eighth Sonata played with powerful control, and its grandeur and menace held in fine balance.
 
There is so much more to enjoy; genial Schubert Impromptus and rather more grandly incisive performances of the sonatas in A major D664, A minor D537, and the great and nobly played B flat major D960. We witness more editorial tinkering in places during Liszt’s Sonata, but the results are surely more than deserving of the highest admiration. For a pianist such as Fiorentino, a mediation between freedom and control is unavoidable in a work like this. But Fiorentino would always weight his performance on the side of structural cohesion, sculpting phrases like a fly fisherman casting sure arcs into the uncertain water. This is what makes this Liszt sonata performance so impressive. It’s a performance to return to time and again.
 
I would say the same too, of his Franck, where he cuts to the expressive heart of the matter with grandeur and nobility. This is equally true of Bauer’s arrangement of the Prelude, fugue and variation Op.18. There is no waste in his performances, no overpointing or deleterious gestures. A stern critic might, however, point to those moments where Fiorentino does slightly distend phrases, a distension that, whilst beautiful in itself, can be seen to interrupt Franck’s sense of drama. These performances however remain truly poetic, a governing quality that Fiorentino found in music to which he was closest.
 
The booklet notes make for attractive, sometimes wistful reading.
 
These excellently recorded performances hold an honoured place in Fiorentino’s recorded legacy, a refining and amplifying of a legacy dating from the 1950s onwards. There are good reasons for thinking this the most impressive body of his recordings. There are good reasons, too, to add this hugely impressive set to your collection.
 
Jonathan Woolf  

Track listing 
CD 1
ROBERT SCHUMANN
FANTASIE in C major Op. 17
Recording: 19 October 1996 (1-3); 18 October 1997 (4,5,10), 14 October 1995 (6-9), 15 October 1995 (11,12) Konzertsaal Siemensvilla, Berlin
Total time: 73:14

CD 2
FRANZ SCHUBERT
Piano Sonata No. 13 in A major D664
Impromptus Op. 90 D899
Piano Sonata No. 4 in A minor D537
Recording: 20 October 1996 (1-3, 8-10), 18 October 1997 (4-7), Konzertsaal Siemensvilla, Berlin
Total time: 67:29

CD 3
FRYDERICK CHOPIN
Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor Op. 58
FRANZ SCHUBERT
Piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat major D960
Recording: 8-9 October 1994, Konzertsaal Siemensvilla, Berlin
Total time: 68:17

CD 4
FRANZ LISZT
Ballade No. 1 in D flat major
Ballade No. 2 in B minor
Funérailles
La leggierezza
Waldesrauschen
Sonata in B minor
Recording: 18-19 October 1997, Konzertsaal Siemensvilla, Berlin
Total time: 76:42

CD 5
CÉSAR FRANCK
Prélude, fugue et variation, Op. 18 (Arr. Bauer)
Prélude, choral et fugue
Prélude, aria et final
Recording: 14 October 1995 (1,2,6-9), 8 October 1995 (3-5)
Konzertsaal Siemensvilla, Berlin
Total time: 67:19

CD 6
ALEXANDER SCRIABIN
Piano Sonata No. 2 in G sharp minor Op. 19 (Sonata-fantasie)
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF
Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor Op. 36 (1931 version)
SERGEI PROKOFIEV
Piano Sonata No 8 in B flat major Op. 84
Recording: 8 October 1994, Konzertsaal Siemensvilla, Berlin
Total time: 63:11

CD 7
ALEXANDER SCRIABIN
Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor Op. 6
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF
Piano Sonata No. 1 in D minor Op. 28
Recording: 14-15 October 1995, Konzertsaal Siemensvilla, Berlin
Producer: Remus Platen
Engineer: Siegfried Schubert-Weber
Total time: 72:21

CD 8
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
Prelude & Fugue in D major BWV532 (Transcriber Busoni, arranged Fiorentino)
French Suite No. 5 in G major BWV 816
Suite from Partita No. 3 in E major BWV 1006 (Transcribed Rachmaninoff)
Prelude & Fugue in E flat major, BWV552 (St. Anne) (Transcribed Busoni, arranged Fiorentino)
Recording: October 1996, Konzertsaal Siemensvilla, Berlin
Total time: 65:39

CD 9
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
Partita No. 1 in B flat major BWV825
Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor BWV1001 (transcribed Fiorentino)
Partita No. 4 in D major BWV828
Recording: 19 October 1996, Konzertsaal Siemensvilla, Berlin
Total time: 75:37

CD 10
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
Suite Bergamasque
DOMENICO SCARLATTI
Sonata in E major
Sonata in D minor
MORITZ MOSZKOWSKI
Etude in F major Op 72/6
GABRIEL FAURÉ (Arr. Fiorentino)
Après un rêve
ROBERT SCHUMANN
Carnaval Op.9
FRANZ LISZT
Valse-impromptu
Gnomenreigen
Valse oubliée No.1
Recording: 15 October 1995 (7-9), 19 October 1996 (11), 20 October 1996 (10), 18 October 1997 (1-6, 12-14) Konzertsaal Siemensvilla, Berlin
Total time: 76:44 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Error processing SSI file