Roberto Prosseda

During a few days away from Lake Como this summer, my long time friend Roberto Prosseda and I performed a concert in Artena. Artena is near the Valmontone train station, a town in the foothills southeast of Roma. 





The event was held at the palazzo of Niké Arrighi Borghese. I'll write about that kind, generous and fun soul later.


Roberto has just released two recordings, one on Decca...  Robert Schumann.

This beautiful recording shows
Rob as one of the new breed 
of artists. 


He is an interpreter of the 
great composers...channeling 
the music through his own 
ethos and producing a 
magnificent collaboration.


I've often marveled at Rob's 

sensitivity to harmonies, 
layering, melodic skills, sense 
of rubato. As a pianist and 
composer, I really appreciate 
having him perform my music, 

because he thinks of truly excellent things to bring to the music that I 
wouldn't or couldn't have done as a performer.

As we watch a play in the theater, and listen to the spoken lines brought to life
from the page, watch the actor's body and face, do we think... she can act, or 
she is so believable? Yes. Do we think... "she is not saying it the way the 
playwright  would have said it, or would have wanted it?" I don't think we do. 
We just let the collaboration of the actor and the author wash over us and we 
react... thinking and feeling in response... open to the experience. I hope 
people will listen to interpreters of my music that way.

Check the iTunes samples from his recording of "Lyricism", including my first 
book of Songs Without Words:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/williams-lyricism-songs-without/id256311952


The way he embraces the melody with the accompaniment in SWoW no. 1, and the way he enfolds it from above and below in SWoW no. 2... Ah! Sublime.


So I was thrilled to get to perform with him! He played Schumann first, and the audience was breathless.


Then he gave us all a great surprise... by having his daughter Miriam (three years old) perform for us. Miriam sat in Papa's lap at the piano, and guided by his hands, performed Traumerei!


You can see Miriam's first public piano performance here, at 9 months!





I will write more about Roberto, about his Mendelssohn association, his national charity, and other projects, coming soon.

Villa D'Este

While composing at Lake Como this summer, my host Floraleda Sacchi was performing a concert, which gave me a little time to explore Villa D'Este. What you say, Villa D'Este is not at Lake Como, it is in Tivoli:

Fountains of Villa D'Este, Tivoli

Or if you are from Floral Park New York, you might say it is on Jericho Turnpike and serves an awesome steak:

Here's the beef

And although you would both be right, there is indeed a splendid, no, magnificent Villa at Lago di Como, the glorious Villa D'Este:

Villa D'Este, Lago di Como

So to set the record straight, Franz Liszt did not actually compose Années de Pèlerinage, Troisième Année: Les Jeux d'Eaux à la Villa d'Este at Lake Como in 1887, rather in Tivoli. Here it is played beautifully by Claudio Arrau:



However, F.L. did indeed spend months at Lake Como, filled with feelings of romance and inspiration, and awaiting the birth of Cosima.  According to Alan Walker's "Franz Liszt: The virtuoso years, 1811-1847" FL and his lady Marie often went out on the lake in the evenings, fishing by torchlight!

So it was not hard to have a drink in front of the Villa, imagining the great composer, then to wander those magnificent colinas behind, up to the top of the property. There was the vista, the glistening water, the boats gliding across the surface, the tall trees. They all sang melodies to me.