Tour Dates: 14 Sept - 30 Sept, 2007

"I recommend Roberto Prosseda for his deep musicianship, his excellent technical mastery of the piano and his markedly lyrical style. I have always been impressed by his originality and his ability to rethink pieces of music familiar to all of us. His playing is always profoundly serious, and yet it gives musicians great pleasure both for its sensuous qualities and its conviction. I know of no young pianist I could recommend with greater enthusiasm".
- Charles Rosen.

Roberto Prosseda

Born in Latina, Italy, in 1975. After the diploma at the "Respighi Conservatory" with Annamaria Martinelli, he studied at the Accademia Pianistica "Incontri col Maestro" of Imola with Alexander Lonquich, Boris Petrushansky and Franco Scala and at the International Piano Foundation in Cadenabbia (Lake Como, Italy) with Dmitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleisher, William Grant Naboré, Charles Rosen, Karl Ulrich Schnabel, Fou Ts'Ong.

After winning major prizes in several important piano competitions, including the "U. Micheli" in Milan, the "F. Schubert" in Dortmund, the "A.Casagrande" in Terni and the "W.A.Mozart" in Salzburg, Roberto Prosseda has performed in Europe, Asia, Australia, North and South America. His recent engagements include Berlin Philharmonie, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Wigmore Hall, Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Teatro alla Scala and Sala Verdi in Milano, Festival Pianistico di Bergamo e Brescia, Settembre Musica in Torino, Ravenna Festival, Triennale Köln, Biennale di Venezia. He is frequently invited for lectures and master classes in several Universities and Conservatories (Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, British Columbia in Vancouver, Xing Hai Conservatory in Canton, Williams College, Australian Natonal University, Georgetown University).

Roberto has appeared as a soloist with many orchestras, like Filarmonica della Scala, Philarmonie der Nationen, Bochumer Symphoniker, Oriol Ensemble, Wiener Kammerorchester, Mozarteum Orchester, Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, Mozart Festival Orchestra, Kammerakademie-Potsdam, Orchestra della Toscana, Filarmonica di Torino.

Roberto's discography includes the complete piano works by two prominent Italian Modern composers: Goffredo Petrassi and Luigi Dallapiccola (awarded with 5 diapasons by the French Magazine Diapason). In May 2005 his first Decca album was released: "Mendelssohn Discoveries", entirely dedicated to Felix Mendelssohn's piano works never recorded before. This CD has been included in the top 10 Mendelssohn piano recordings by the English magazine "Piano". Last  May 2006 Decca released a second CD, "Mendelssohn Rarities", with four unpublished piano sonatas by Felix Mendelssohn. In 2006 and 2007 Roberto will be presenting many World Premieres of Mendelssohn's unpublished piano works in several cities (Leipzig Gewandhaus, Berlin Philharmonie, New York Carnegie Hall, MusicToronto, London Wigmore Hall).

Mendelssohn Discoveries Tour 

On September 14th Roberto Prosseda begins his Mendelssohn Discoveries Tour with a presentation at the Mendelssohn-Haus in Leipzig. The Italian pianist will present more than 15 World Premieres of Felix Mendelssohn’s unpublished piano works. On September 15th Roberto Prosseda debuted at the famous Gewandhaus, giving a recital in the “Mendelssohn Tage 2006” getting an enthusiasti review on the Leipziger Volkszeitung. On the 28th he presented an all-Mendelssohn program at the Berlin Philharmonie. Prosseda’s researches on Mendelssohn’s unpublished works also brought him to record two CD’s recently released from Decca. They include four unpublished piano Sonatas, a complex 25-minutes-long Fantasia and many other piano pieces never recorded before. “Mendelssohn Rarities” e “Mendelssohn Discoveries” have been received with enthusiastic reviews on authoritative newspapers and music magazines.

On February 11th  2007 at the Philharmonie in Berlin Prosseda will present the World Premiere of Felix Mendelssohn’s unpublished piano concerto for piano and orchestra in E minor with Berliner Symphoniker conducted by Lior Shambadal. Then he will tour Italy with the violinist Fabrizio von Arx and Berliner Symphoniker.  

Reviews

"Roberto Prosseda is a fine musician and a wonderful pianist with an exquisite imagination, refined sound and a wonderful feeling - never vulgar - for freedom of phrasing."
-Dmitri Bashkirov

"There's a lot of unknown Mendelssohn, but if Mozart's juvenilia gets recorded regularly there's little reason not to try out the work by a composer who was at least Mozart's equal in the child prodigy department. Besides, not all of this stuff is early: Mendelssohn's own arrangements of three numbers from A Midsummer Night's Dream ought to be in every pianist's encore repertoire, but for some reason they aren't. The Scherzo in particular works fabulously well as a piano piece, but both the Nocturne and Wedding March also sound terrific in the hands of Italian pianist Roberto Prosseda, whose performances have plenty of nimble-fingered character and (where necessary) atmosphere. The other major work on the disc is an imposing Fantasia in C minor--three large movements, the last of which is a fugue, taking up some 25 adventure-filled minutes. Mendelssohn was only 14 when he wrote the work, but its improvisatory character and wealth of enjoyable thematic material certainly doesn't sound at all immature. The Capriccio in E-flat minor, composed around the same time, also is a very satisfying extended piece. The remaining eight items are all occasional works, including several prototypical "songs without words" and an especially delightful little Sonatina in E major. All of them are beautifully played by Prosseda and sonorously recorded. There are some real gems here; it's a program well worth seeking out and hearing."
- David Hurwitz, Classicstoday.com  rating: 9/9

"I was primed for the final track of the F Minor Ballade.  Prosseda really dives into this very emotional work, with its tremendous variances of dynamics."
- John Sunier, Audiophile Audition (USA), December 2005

"And finally, the most recent of notable Mendelssohn's piano discs, Roberto Prosseda's recording for Decca of pieces never before set down, including the exceptionally complex 25-minute Fantasia of 1823, Mendelssohn's own arrangement of the Scherzo, Notturno and Wedding March from A Midsummer Night Dream (fascinating!) and the dramatic and virtuosic Adagio and Presto Agitato. These, complemented by playing of great elegance and sonic beauty, make this CD of exceptional interest".
- PIANO (UK), September-October 2005, Bettina Neumann

"A collection of newly discovered piano works by Mendelssohn, presented by Italian pianist Roberto Prosseda on a CD released April 22 and in a current series of recitals at New York's Bargemusic, set out to rehabilitate the man whom Schiller called the Mozart of his age. Many of the pieces presented on the Decca CD, "Mendelssohn Discoveries," are intimate, almost diary-like compositions that offer biographical sketches of a composer who, with his happy marriage and financial security, sits oddly among the tormented geniuses of his age. There is a Kleines Lied written on his honeymoon, an Adagio and Presto Agitato presented to the love-struck daughter of a Scottish laird, and a Song Without Words presented like a well-wishing greeting card to his sister Fanny when she was about to give birth. But there are also hints, in the music, of greater emotional depth fed by tension. "I think he suffered a lot behind this apparently quiet life," says Mr. Prosseda. "But he never wanted to show off suffering the way Chopin and Beethoven did, he always tried to keep a certain composure. So when the suffering comes out, it comes out even more dramatically."As evidence he cites the newly discovered Fantasia in C Minor, written in 1823. Its central Adagio, a gorgeous reverie that is both intensely introverted and emotionally expressive, sounds to Mr. Prosseda "like the confessions of an old man who has suffered many tragedies in his life." It certainly does not sound like the composition homework of a 13-year old. The Fantasia is intriguing also because it undermines common conceptions of Mendelssohn as a musical conservative. An extensive improvisation-like work, it contains a complex harmonic program that keeps shifting from C minor into D major and modulates into remote tonalities that foreshadow the harmonic innovations of Schumann, Chopin, and even Liszt".
- Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2005

"The pianist strikes the first note. Prosseda begins a stunning rendition of Chopin in front of a large and diverse crowd of music lovers"
- Stewart Salwin, The Georgetown Independent, 24 February, 2003