THE MOST GREATEST ITALIAN PIANIST
"E' il solo altro pianista." (He is the only other pianist)
- Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
(from a conversation with his pupil and friend, pianist Alberto Neumann)
"Ho ascoltato recentemente un pianista alla radio che mi ha impressionato molto: Sergio Fiorentino, lei lo conosce?"
(Recently I listened to a pianist on the radio who impressed me very much: Sergio Fiorentino, do you know him?)
- Vladimir Horowitz
(during a conversation with Italian pianist Rodolfo Caporali in his home in New York City in 1963)
SERGIO FIORENTINO was a 20th-century Italian classical pianist whose on-and-off performing career spanned five decades. Fiorentino was born in Naples on December 22, 1927 and died there August 22, 1998.Sergio Fiorentino was a 20th-century Italian classical pianist whose on-and-off performing career spanned five decades. Fiorentino was born in Naples on December 22, 1927 and died there August 22, 1998.
Fiorentino studied at the Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella in Naples under Luigi Finizio and Paolo Denza, earned his diploma in 1946 and attended a master class of Carlo Zecchi in Salzburg in 1948.
He debuted at New York's Carnegie Recital Hall in 1953. The next year, however, while on tour in Argentina and Uruguay, he suffered a near-fatal plane accident, forcing him to cut back on concertizing. This led to him becoming a teacher at the Naples conservatory where he had once been a student.
In the late 1950s he made a new start in concertizing, both in his native country and in England. Most of his recordings were made during those years (1958-1965). But again, he withdrew from the concert stage, limiting his rare public appearances to his native country, and again started to regularly teach master classes.
After leaving the Naples conservatory in 1993, he again began to play more in public outside his native Italy and performed in Germany, France, Taiwan, and the USA. Negotiated and contracted engagements in Russia and Canada could not be fulfilled due to his sudden death in his home in Naples on August 22nd, 1998.
Beginning in 1994 through after his death in 1998, a large number of recordings by Fiorentino were released. Recordings made in Berlin from 1994 to 1997 were released on APR whereas earlier unissued material was put out by the Concert Artists label. In February 2007, Concert Artists admitted to falsely attributing music recorded by the late Joyce Hatto.[1] Subsequently, a CD of mazurkas by Fiorentino produced by Concert Artists (CACD9002-2) has been found to contain plagiarised tracks from three other performers.
Some of Fiorentino's recordings made during the late fifties and early sixties were issued after the original label's (Saga) failure under pseudonyms by the new owner (Marcel Rodd). The most frequently used pseudonym was "Paul Procopolis".
Born in Naples on December 22nd 1927 SERGIO FIORENTINO showed an early talent for the piano. He was barely 11 years of age when he was awarded a scholarship and entered the San Pietro a Majella Conservatoire in 1938 and was placed under the guidance of Luigi Finizio and Paolo Denza. He was awarded his diploma in 1946. He repaid those who had shown such confidence in his prodigious talent by winning first prizes in every European Piano Competition of note before he was barely twenty years old!
During those years as a student he developed a significant and remarkable affinity for the music of Rachmaninov. In 1947 he played the composers third piano concerto for the first time and he retained a firm affection for the work throughout his life. In fact he chose to play the concerto in a series of orchestral concerts in Germany not many months before he died. Fiorentino was one of the few top-ranking pianists to play the complete works of the great Russian composer and maintain them in his constant performing repertoire. In 1987 he gave a series of recitals in which he played Rachmaninov’s complete piano works in four programmes spread over a few days.
The Concert Artist association with this phenomenal young pianist started in 1953 when he accepted our invitation to make a stopover in London on his way back from his United States debut in New York’s Carnegie Hall. Fiorentino gave six recitals in the provinces, before rushing back to Rome and we arranged for his London debut in the following year. Thus began an artistic relationship that was to last a lifetime.
Fate, however, was all to soon to play an unkind card. In the following year the plane bringing Fiorentino back from a South American Tour to New York developed an engine failure and caught fire. In the emergency landing that followed Fiorentino suffered a back injury. This was not considered by anyone at the time to be serious. Fiorentino himself was naturally relieved that his hands were not injured in any way. He duly arrived in Britain to make his Wigmore Hall debut and gave, under our auspices, a whole series of concerts in London and the Provinces. He also began on a long series of recordings, over fifty long playing records, that in the following years would be sought after by collectors the world over. We are gradually making this golden legacy available on compact disc. The Liszt Transcendental Etudes have met with worldwide acclaim and his series of Beethoven and Mozart Sonatas, made available for the first time, have added a completely new dimension to the perceived opinion held by many critics on this great artist. We are making available as much material as we can and including recordings from public concerts that we hold in trust for posterity. We have already issued concertos by Chopin and Grieg and, in due course, we shall also be making available public performances of concertos by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov.
In London, at the Royal Festival Hall, Fiorentino appeared with all the leading orchestras playing the repertoire with which he will always be associated. In one such concert he played both the second and third Rachmaninov concertos whilst, in another, he combined the Paganini Rhapsody with the Tchaikovsky B flat minor concerto. In everything he played he displayed the same seemingly effortless virtuosity sustaining a huge breadth of tone and whispers of sound that were always audible.
Gradually, over the following few years, his back injury became more apparent and a continuing source of pain. Nevertheless, Fiorentino continued to be a regular visitor to Britain making a large number of recordings and giving many exceptional concerts. Among these we must mention two stunning Liszt Recitals in the Royal Festival Hall at which many surprisingly celebrated pianists were to be seen in the audience.
Later, in Italy, after receiving a further severe jolt in a car accident it was realised the injury that he had sustained in the original air accident had been far more serious that had been diagnosed. By the mid-sixties the pianist found that back pain and travel, which he had never really liked, coupled with a general disenchantment of the life of a travelling virtuoso gradually persuaded him to withdraw from public concert giving. He had accepted an invitation to return to the San Pietro a Majella as early as 1956 and had balanced his life between teaching and playing. Now he devoted the greater part of his knowledge, talent and energies to teaching. He remained quietly at the Conservatory for over thirty years but he would still accept the odd concert engagement, if it interested him, but mostly he preferred to remain in Italy.
In December 1991 he appeared in Rome playing the Rachmaninov Paganini Rhapsody, an old favourite of his, to an affectionate and rapturous reception from press and public. Within a few months he received an invitation to play from Germany. A long-standing knowledgeable German music lover, who had followed Fiorentino’s career, decided to step in and made possible a series of concerts. Fiorentino fortunately decided to accept the offer and from this he was launched into an Indian summer that was to completely change the direction of his career.
His German appearances were recorded and the double CD from these performances issued in Britain on the APR label attracted worldwide attention. A series of new recordings were made in Germany to follow up the initial success and were again released by APR to acclaim - particularly in France and America. Invitations for concert appearances in America and throughout Europe and Russia again began to flow. Fiorentino made highly successful reappearances in America with laudatory press notices from leading critics. At the height of this success, so richly deserved, fate cruelly and mercilessly played the final card. Preparing for concerts in France, a tour with orchestra in Germany and a further recording series of recordings in Berlin, Fiorentino died from a heart attack in Naples on August 22nd 1998. So much had been accomplished but, seemingly, there was so much more yet to come. We are all made losers by his untimely death.
As an artist Sergio Fiorentino was quietly unassuming. Like Rachmaninov before him, Fiorentino was quiet of gesture and manner. He had no need of false posturing he dispensed only the music. Sometimes he appeared withdrawn and seemed surprised when his audience burst into enthusiastic applause. Once when asked about this, Fiorentino replied, “I had forgotten that they were there!†For him, it was the music that mattered and those of us who heard him, knew him or worked with him, have been privileged to share those moments.
"Sergio Fiorentino was one of the greatest pianists I have ever heard. I realize that this is a big statement, especially since my listening and loving pianists over a period of over half a century. I heard Backhaus, Cherkassky, Kapell, Landowska, Moiseiwitsch, Schnabel and Solomon. I knew Horowitz personally. And I introduced to America in their debut recitals such pianistic luminaries as Bella Davidovich, Andrei Gavrilov, Jean-Philippe Collard, Mikhail Pletnev, Igor Zhukov, Ekaterina Novitskaya, Maria-Joao Pires, Andrea Lucchesini and more than twenty others. I returned to America after absences of many decades such artist as Maria Tipo, Magda Tagliaferro, Dubravka Tomsic, Vlado Perlemuter and Dame Moura Lympany. But it was Sergio Fiorentino's return after forty odd years of first playing in New York City that brought me the greatest satisfaction and moved me deeply.
Sergio brought to his music a profound spiritual quality in addition to his superb musicianship and flawless technique. He posessed a repertoire more extensive than any other musician I have ever known. He was modest and humble; there was something of a saint in him. Never did he interject his own ego into his playing. He was always at the service of the composer, and what a great service that was! His Rachmaninoff was Russian, his Debussy French, his Beethoven German. And in the sense that he especially loved the waltz, he was Viennese. This is not to say that his own unique personality did not shine through his music: it did. But the composer's intentions, style and historical perspectives were paramount with him.
Sergio was immediately loved by Newport and New York audiences. Critics from Boston and New York wrote that his was a throwback to the golden age of Lhevinne, Godowsky and Rachmaninoff himself. Sergio was generous with his time, his artistry and his concern for others. His fellow artist at the Festival revered him; one seasoned pianist even wanted to travel to Naples for further study with him. He was an impresario's dream: always playing like a god with no hidden agenda of personal difficulties. His needs were simple: a light meal and a glass of Coke. He was impeccably dressed even though his concert suit spanned the decades. The festival made him a gift of a new set of tails; he accepted it graciously, and it is now a poignant reminder that he played his very last recital in that new suit. As a matter of fact, the very last piece he played in public was at the Newport Music Festival --- Beethoven's Sonata, Op. 26, prophetically containing the "Marcia funebre sulla morte d'un eroe." For me, Sergio was that "hero". He will be forever missed and never forgotten".
Dr. Mark P. Malkovich III
(Artistic Director Newport Music Festival, November 1998)
