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Robert Prosseda's 'Beethoven Three Piano Sonatas Op 2' is a stimulating recording / GRAMOPHONE: International Piano

Robert Prosseda writes……Like most pianists, I have been playing Beethoven’s Sonatas since my earliest years of study, and have regularly performed many of them in concert over the past 30 years. However, I had not so far dared to approach the recording of Beethoven’s Sonatas, not least because of the huge number of recordings already made by many of the greatest performers.

Now, at the age of 50, and after having tackled and systematically recorded all of Mozart’s piano music, I have decided to approach the recording of Beethoven’s first sonatas. I consider them, from a certain point of view, to be a natural continuation of the in-depth work I have already done with Mozart’s music.

Can something new, interesting and ‘true’ still be said about the interpretation of Beethoven’s sonatas? I believe so, provided we break out of the conventions created by the tradition of interpretation and discography, where a modern piano is used in 98% of cases. Therefore, I thought that the choice to record Beethoven on a historical instrument could also be a way of embarking on a more individual interpretative investigation, free from the models we risk becoming accustomed to from listening to famous recordings on modern pianos. Having become more and more familiar with historical instruments in recent years, I have gradually come to realise that Beethoven’s music, and especially that of the early period, can sound much more meaningful and ‘sincere’ on the fortepiano than on the modern piano. It is not, of course, a question of having to recreate the sound Beethoven had in mind at any cost. After all, today, more than 200 years after the composition of Beethoven’s

Sonatas, our perception of sound has also changed: the same sound of a fortepiano certainly had a different effect on a Viennese listener in 1795, compared to a listener today.

From International Piano ……Roberto Prosseda’s prolonged contact with the instrument and his profound knowledge of its idiosyncrasies enable him to exploit its quirks and discontinuities rather than trying to paper over them

David Threasher writes…..Like András Schiff, Roberto Prosseda held off recording Beethoven’s piano sonatas until his 50th year. His decision to do so now coincides with his making the acquaintance of a remarkable piano: Graf No 429, dating from 1820 and recently extensively restored – retaining, we are told, its original components, including the leather hammers and dampers. It’s certainly an instrument with a great deal of personality, and if its date of manufacture doesn’t coincide precisely with Beethoven’s Op 2 (1795), then Prosseda contends that it brought this music to life far more persuasively than a range of modern copies of late 18th-century fortepianos that he tried before rejecting.

The Graf’s voice comes closest to the modern piano in its middle range but departs significantly outside of that, developing a throaty twang lower in the range and a veiled quality in the treble region, although with no loss of clarity. Attack grows blunter as volume increases. And the dynamic range is quite remarkable, from susurrating pianos and pianissimos to almost fierce fortissimos: witness the shattering bass notes in the central section of Op 2 No 3’s Adagio, which suddenly pin back the ears like an introvert unexpectedly raising their voice.

Prosseda’s interpretations, too, are notably personal and individual. He is never less than authoritative in slow movements but comes into his own in lighter-hearted passages such as the three scherzos or the capering finale of Op 2 No 3. Rubato is applied liberally but without ever feeling merely applied. And Prosseda’s prolonged contact with the instrument and his profound knowledge of its idiosyncrasies enable him to exploit its quirks and discontinuities rather than trying to paper over them.

Prosseda’s Op 2 is recorded (at the Musicafelix Studio in Prato, Italy) with an intimacy that transmits the instrument’s characterful action, clattering most deliciously in involved moments such as the latter half of the Trio of Op 2 No 1. Equally flavoursome is the slighly gamey tuning, not as a result of any shortcomings of the instrument or its maintenance but due to the use, we are informed, of Vallotti unequal temperament – a tantalising detail in a stimulating recording.

This review originally featured in the SPRING 2025 issue of International Piano

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