About

Bruno Mezzena, born in Trento, Italy, on April 4, 1927, and died in Taranto on July 6, 2017, graduated brilliantly in piano at the age of 15 from the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice under Nunzio Montanari. He then perfected his skills with distinguished musicians who have marked the history of piano interpretation, such as Marguerite Long, Tito Aprea and, above all, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. He then began his concert activity, winning awards in important international piano competitions, such as Bolzano (Busoni, 1950) and Munich (1952), and performed in Italy and abroad under the direction of famous conductors, including Carlo Maria Giulini, Antonio Pedrotti, Anton De Bavier, Gabriel Chmura, Paul Angerer, and Hermann Michael. He graduated in Choral Music in 1953 and Composition in 1961 from the Claudio Monteverdi Conservatory in Bolzano, studying under Alfredo Sangiorgi (a student of Arnold Schönberg) and Renato Dionisi.

From 1952 to 1960, Mezzena was a piano professor at the Bolzano Conservatory and, beginning in 1960, also at the Trento Conservatory, where he was elected director from 1975 to 1985. In addition to his solo activity, as evidenced by a series of important recordings for various labels (including Ricordi, PDU, Dynamic, Angelicum, EMI Voce del Padrone, Sony, CBS, EMS Arcobaleno), focused mainly on little-known and rarely performed compositions, Mezzena also devoted himself to chamber music. In 1974, he founded the Italian Quintet with Margit Spirk, Franco Mezzena, Arturo Mazza, and Donna Magendanz Guarino. Their recording for Ricordi of Anton Webern's quintet for piano and strings and Arnold Schoenberg's Kammersymphonie op. 9 in Webern's transcription for piano and string quartet won the Record Critics' Prize in 1977. He also played in duos with internationally renowned musicians such as Salvatore Accardo, Bruno Giuranna, Rocco Filippini, Sandor Vegh, Alain Meunier, Franco Petracchi, Jacques Klein, and Paul Tortelier.

He became known for his unique, recognizable sound, slightly dark in timbre, intense and suffused, which is the hallmark of all his performances. His performances include notably the Piano Sonatas op. 1 and 2 by Johannes Brahms, the B minor Sonata and Totentanz for piano by Franz Liszt, the complete Mazurkas and 4 Ballades by Chopin, the entire piano works of Berg and Webern. He recorded several duo CDs with his son Franco, including Sonatas by Beethoven, Tailleferre, Ravel, Respighi, Pizzetti, Debussy and Bartok. In trio, again with Franco Mezzena and cellist Arturo Bonucci, he recorded the complete trios of Giuseppe Martucci and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.

His lesser-known but significant output as a composer includes the Sonata for Violin and Piano (1963), Music for Maja, Variations and Fugue for Solo Violin (1962) and Pages for Piano (1965). He won first prize at the Freiburg Composition Competition with the Sonata for Violin and Piano, where the influence of Sangiorgi and dodecaphony is evident.

Mezzena gave many master classes and masterclasses in various venues and was often invited as a member of juries in national and international competitions (Busoni, Viotti of Vercelli, Mavi-Marcoz of Saint-Vincent, Rendano, Pozzoli, Rina Sala Gallo and others). At the Accademia Musicale Pescarese, three-year diploma courses (“Diploma di Perfezionamento”) were established in 1984, extending the course of study from one year to three, in line with European and international academies. During the years in which Maestro Bruno Mezzena was their artistic director, both the Pescara Academy and the Musical Institute "A. Benvenuti" of Conegliano (TV) experienced remarkable evolution, reaching excellent levels both in the didactically and artistically. This development has been possible thanks to its professionalism, expertise, links with eminent figures on the international music scene, foresight and refined intellectual capacity.

Another important initiative was the establishment in 1983 of the Vocal Chamber Music Competition "City of Conegliano." It was an ingenious intuition, responding to the need to enhance a genre – that of chamber music, vocal or instrumental – little practised in Italy compared to other European countries, such as Germany. Bruno Mezzena, who had always advocated the need to practice chamber music even in educational courses, especially within conservatories, continued to promote it enthusiastically. He became artistic director of the competition and was a permanent member of the judging committee.

Bruno Mezzena was also an extraordinary teacher of international standing. A vast connoisseur of contemporary music, he mastered the entire piano repertoire. He communicated passion, seriousness and methodological rigour to his students. The core of his teaching was absolute fidelity to the text, a love of detail and the unrelenting search for sound. He did not impose rigid pre-established patterns or particular technical approaches but rather was gifted with the rare ability to bring out and develop individual potential. He was devoted to the teaching and performance of twentieth-century and contemporary music, which he considered too little known and performed.

From a strictly pianistic point of view, among his most significant teachings was the idea that technical difficulty is overcome only through musical expression, with careful and meticulous analysis of phrasing and a study of sound, in full understanding of the author's intentions. Not technique first and then music, but precisely the opposite. Also contributing to this was a sparing use of the pedal, not to cover the sound but to enhance it, exploiting its mechanism to achieve novel resonance effects, often in combination with the muffled sounds of the left pedal.