The interests of Italian pianist Roberto Prosseda are wide-ranging and his energies seemingly endless. Earlier in his career he discovered and promoted unknown piano works by Salieri, Rossini and Roffredo Caetani, as well as Mendelssohn’s unfinished Third Piano Concerto. He is the founding president of the Associazione Mendelssohn and the co-founder and artistic coordinator of Donatori di Musica, a network of musicians and doctors who arrange concerts in Italian hospitals. More recently he has championed the pedal piano, giving the modern premieres of several works for this rarely encountered instrument. He turns 50 next year and has already amassed a sizeable discography, with repertoire ranging from Bach to contemporary Italians, and including the complete piano works of Mozart and Mendelssohn. His most recent recording encompasses the three piano sonatas completed in 1795 and dedicated to Haydn, published by Beethoven the following year as his Op 2.

Prosseda writes in his booklet notes that his search for just the right instrument led him to spend time with several modern replicas of instruments dating from 1795-1800. His final choice, however, was an antique Graf fortepiano, No 429, from 1820. It was recently restored by the Laboratorio di Restauro del Fortepiano in Florence, the very city where, 324 years earlier under Medici patronage, Bartolomeo Cristofori had invented the piano. Though this Graf postdates the sonatas by a quarter of a century, it’s easy to understand Prosseda’s preference. Within an extraordinarily wide dynamic spectrum, he draws golden sounds from the instrument’s distinctive registers. The treble speaks with shimmering clarity and the power of the resonant bass can be startling. Yet beyond the quality and variety of sound Prosseda achieves, Beethoven’s articulation markings emerge with greater definition than commonly heard on a modern piano.

Prosseda’s readings shed new light on the essential character of each of these sonatas, and quite vividly so. A poignant lyricism emerges from the F minor Sonata, Op 2 No 1. The phrasing is exquisite. It may be that in the off-kilter Minuet Prosseda’s way with Beethoven is at its most beguiling. The A major Sonata, Op 2 No 2, often defers to a hushed intimacy and articulation is scrupulous throughout. A sense of spaciousness prevails in the C major Sonata, Op 2 No 3. The second movement surprises with a terrifying bass and the Scherzo, taken at the perfect tempo, has a soaring Trio that exhilarates.

‘Can something new, interesting and “true” still be said about the interpretation of Beethoven’s sonatas?’ is the rhetorical question Prosseda poses in the booklet notes. This recording resoundingly answers in the affirmative, while offering plentiful listening pleasures.