With Melancholia, Rick Wakeman completes a remarkable trilogy of solo piano works that began with Piano Portraits (2017) and continued with Piano Odyssey (2018) - both landmark albums that found him reaching new heights of popularity and critical esteem as a solo artist. But while those records looked outward, reinterpreting beloved melodies and exploring sweeping themes, turns inward, inviting us into the most personal, introspective, and perhaps profound music of Wakeman’s storied career.
What followed was not a conceptual record in the traditional sense, but a deeply cohesive suite, written intuitively at first and later shaped in collaboration with long-time producer and engineer Erik Jordan at The Granary Studio in Norfolk. Recorded on a beautiful Steinway Model D, the sound of Melancholia is rich, resonant, and stripped bare in the most delicate way.
