Concluding a trilogy of solo piano works that began with Piano Portals in 2017 and was followed by Piano Odyssey the next year, Rick Wakeman brings things full circle with Melancholia. As the title suggests, the third and final instalment of this creative arc finds Rick looking inwards to explore deep, emotional themes such as love, loss and longing. With a tone and timbre that finds him reaching deep into the listener’s psyche and pulling hard on their heartstrings, Melancholia is a parred-back album that shows a tender side to Rick Wakeman rarely seen.

It is often said that guitarists have a signature sound, drummers their own “feel”, but you rarely hear it said of keyboard players. However, with perhaps the exception of Vladimir Horowitz, no other musician is as easily identifiable as Rick Wakeman, and what makes that even more remarkable is the breadth of Wakeman’s repertoire, from the progressive rock of Yes to his dalliances with new age, ambient, and Christian music, across over 100 solo albums and numerous appearances as a guest musician and band member, he has a diverse, enviable body of work. Of course, having your own style doesn’t equate lack of dimension, yet there’s an almost indefinable quality that renders Rick’s playing recognisable. It’s a less-is-more quality; like all the best performers, be they old bluesman or violinists, Rick Wakeman understands that sometimes it’s not what you play, but what you don’t. Good art is so often about leaving space for the listener to infer their own meaning, and that makes for a more interactive experience. Shaped in collaboration with long-time producer Erik Jordan and recorded at The Granary Studio, Norfolk, Melancholia is an album that is punctuated by huge white spaces and this gives the record a stark aesthetic. The album is a huge white canvas upon which Rick makes delicate strokes, with the notes he plays hanging like icicles and glistening in winter sun.

While Melancholia is not a concept album per se, it is has a unified feel nevertheless, a suite that ebbs and flows perfectly, allowing the listener to dip in and out or (preferably) consume whole to fully appreciate its gentle ululation. Songs such as ‘Dance of the Ghosts’ and the achingly-beautiful, ‘The Morning Light’ find Rick at his most unguarded, and that makes Melancholia the most intimate and personal album of his career. Rick Wakeman makes the Steinway Model D piano “speak” in a way that words never could and the instrumental music he creates is like poetry without words and creates mental images that words would only obscure. All of which makes Melancholia a unique album in the career of a unique artist.

• Melancholia is released via Madfish on 17th October 2025.
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Track List:

1. Sitting at the Window
2. Reflection
3. Pathos
4. Dance of the Ghosts
5. Alone
6. The Morning Light
7. Garo
8. All in the Mind
9. Sea of Tranquillity
10. Missing
11. Watching Life
12. Melancholia