Orchestral and solo works make up Volume 4 of APR’s survey devoted to the late Sergio Fiorentino’s 1960s Liszt output for the small Concert Artist label. The opening selection, Mephisto Waltz No. 1, gets a whale of a performance where phrasing and nuance rather than tempo fluctuation underscore the music’s demonic subtext, and Fiorentino’s powerhouse fingers convey all the excitement and drive of Vladimir Ashkenazy’s better-known traversals. Fiorentino makes light work of the Ab Irato etude’s swashbuckling hurdles and reveals his strong affinity for Liszt’s lyrical, introspective persona in the Hungarian Folksongs and the Spozalizio.
Unfortunately, the concerted works suffer from close, claustrophobic microphone placement plus an orchestra that sounds severely understaffed, riddled with warbling winds and thin strings. The piano, in turn, is mixed far too forward. Aside from Fiorentino’s effortless, powerhouse octaves in the Second Concerto and gorgeously adjusted runs in the Chopin Fantasia, few special moments transpire that would justify general collectors to seek out these recordings over their better-engineered counterparts. Moreover, the draggy, listless basic tempo Vernon Handley and Fiorentino favor for the Polonaise’s main section drains all the glitter and showmanship from a work that needs all the glitter and showmanship it can get. In all, a disc with limited appeal–but what a Mephisto Waltz!
