“Italian Piano Experience – Music, History and Innovation”
Closing Concert
A Grand Pedal-piano Concert
Roberto Prosseda
CONCERT PROGRAMME
Robert Schumann: – Dai 6 Kanonische Etuden für den Pedalflügel op. 56: n. 2, 4, 5;
Alexandre Pierre François Boëly: – Fantaisie et Fugue op. 18 n. 6;
Charles Valentin Alkan:- Prières op. 64 n. 1, 3, 5;
– Grands Préludes op. 66 n. 3 e 4 per piano-pédalier;
– – – – – –
Nicola Sani:- Concetto Spaziale – Attese (pedal-piano version, world premiere);
Franz Liszt: – Fantasia quasi sonata après une lecture de Dante (with some bass notes played at the pedal-board);
Roberto Prosseda was born in Latina, Italy, in 1975.
Prosseda began playing the piano at the age of four. In 1985, he entered the Conservatorio Ottorino Respighi in Latina, where he studied piano with Anna Maria Martinelli, graduating in 1994. He went on to study with Alexander Lonquich, Boris Petrushansky and Franco Scala at the Accademia Pianistica “Incontri col Maestro” in Imola, and with Dmitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleisher, William Grant Naboré, Charles Rosen, Karl Ulrich Schnabel, Fou Ts’ong at the International Piano Foundation in Cadenabbia (Lake Como, Italy).
Prosseda has won major prizes in several piano competitions, including the Umberto Micheli competition in Milan, the Franz Schubert
competition in Dortmund, the Alessandro Casagrande competition in Terni, and the Mozart competition in Salzburg. Prosseda completed his PhD in Italian Literature from La Sapienza University in Rome. Prosseda and his wife, concert pianist Alessandra Ammara, perform as a piano duo.
Prosseda is particularly noted for his performances of newly discovered works by Felix Mendelssohn. He has recorded a nine-CD
series for Decca of the piano works of Mendelssohn, including a Mendelssohn Discoveries album of formerly unknown works. Prosseda discovered a manuscript of Mendelssohn’s uncompleted third piano concerto in the Bodleian Library, and asked Marcello Bufalini to complete the score. Prosseda subsequently performed the reconstruction publicly and recorded it commercially. Prosseda has prepared
critical editions of rare piano works by Mendelssohn, including 6 Fugues (1821–26), 4 Sonatas (1820), and Fantasia for piano four hands (1824). Prosseda is founder and president of the Associazione Mendelssohn, which promotes the music and the heritage of Felix Mendelssohn.
Prosseda dedicated the early part of his career to the discovery of piano works by several neglected Italian composers, such as Antonio Salieri, Gioachino Rossini and Roffredo Caetani. He published the first edition of Salieri’s Sonata in C major in 2004 for Boccaccini & Spada.
His Decca albums dedicated to Felix Mendelssohn, including the Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly, have won much acclaim in the press, including the CHOC from Le Monde de la Musique Classique, the Diapason d’Or and Chamber Music CD of the Month in the UK’s Classic FM magazine.
In 2010, Deutsche Grammophon selected twelve recordings by Prosseda to add to the box set, “Classic Gold”. In 2014 Prosseda completed his 10-years project of recording all Mendelssohn’s piano works for Decca in 9 CDs.
Roberto Prosseda’s sensational discovery of new works by Mendelssohn made the headlines in Europe and led to several Decca releases. His albums have won much acclaim in the press, including the CHOC from Le Monde de la Musique Classique, the Diapason d’Or and Chamber Music CD of the Month in the UK’s Classic FM magazine. In 2014 Prosseda completed his 10-year project of
recording Mendelssohn’s complete piano works for Decca in 10 CDs, also released in a Box-set in 2017 (“Mendelssohn Complete Piano Works”).
Roberto Prosseda has performed regularly with some of the world’s most important orchestras, such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, Moscow State Philharmonic, Bruxelles Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic, Saatskapelle Weimar, Sinfonia Lahti, Berliner Symphoniker, Santa Cecilia, Filarmonica della Scala, Leipzig Gewandhaus. He played under the baton of David Afkham, Marc Albrecht, Christian Arming, Harry Bickett, Riccardo Chailly, Pietari Inkinen, Yannik Nezeit-Seguin, George Pehlivanian, Dennis Russel-Davies, Tugan Sokhiev, Jurai Valcuha, Jan Willem de Vriend. With the Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Riccardo Chailly, he recorded live the 3rd Piano Concerto in E minor by Mendelssohn, released on the Decca International label in September 2009.
Other than Mendelssohn, of whose piano music he is considered to be one of today’s leading interpreters, Prosseda’s performances of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Chopin have been particularly praised, and these composers have in fact featured in Prosseda’s recent Decca recordings. An active proponent of Italian music, Prosseda also recorded the complete piano works of Petrassi and Dallapiccola.
In September 2011 Prosseda gave his debut on the pedalpiano, performing the Concerto for Pedal Piano by Gounod in the world
premiere in modern times. Subsequently, contemporary composers have written piano pedal pieces for Prosseda, including Cristian Carrara, Ennio and Andrea Morricone, Giuseppe Lupis, Alessandro Solbiati and Michael Glenn Williams.
Prosseda has commercially recorded four works by Charles Gounod for piano-pédalier and orchestra (Concerto, Suite Concertante, Fantaisie sur l’Hymne Russe and Danse Roumaine) for Hyperion. In June 2012, Prosseda made his debut recital on the piano-pédalier at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. He has given more than 50 concerts with the pedal piano, rediscovering the original compositions
by Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt and Charles Valentin Alkan. A recording of Gounod’s four pieces for pedal piano and orchestra with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana conducted by Howard Shelley was released on the Hyperion label in 2013.
Roberto Prosseda is also very active in musical divulgation. He wrote the book “Il Pianoforte” for Edizioni Curci (2013) and made three documentaries dedicated to Mendelssohn, Chopin and Liszt (Euroarts).
Prosseda is a host on Italian National Radio (RAI), Radiotre, and a contributor to the “Lezioni di Musica” series on RAI. Prosseda is the author of “Lezioni di Musica – il Pianoforte”, a listening guide to piano repertoire, published in Italian by Edizioni Curci in 2013. He is the author and co-producer of three documentaries: “Mendelssohn Unknown”, “Fryderyk Chopin”, and “Liszt: The Years of Pilgrimage”. He is also co-founder and artistic coordinator of “Donatori di Musica”, a network of musicians and doctors who organise concert series in Italian hospitals.
Since 2012, Prosseda has also given lecture-concerts with the robot pianist TeoTronico, as educational or family concerts, to demonstrate differences between a literal production of music and human interpretation.
web-site: www.robertoprosseda.com
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