Flavio Villani — In Memoriam - i. Prelude

from the album In Memoriam by Flavio Villani In Memoriam is a suite of five improvised pieces that became the emotional heart of this album. Some of them were already waiting to be recorded. Elegy, Stuck in B♭ and Buona notte, bello, had grown out of my experience of losing my partner, David. This Prelude, however, wasn't planned. During the recording sessions in Berlin, I found myself paralysed by self-doubt, questioning whether I deserved to be recording an album at all. My producer, René Möller, gently suggested that instead of fighting those feelings, I could simply allow them into the music. So I stopped trying to sound certain, and started listening. What followed was completely improvised. Looking back, it feels like the doorway into the rest of the suite—a beginning that I didn't know was missing until it appeared. Thank you for listening. If you would like to support my work and purchase the full album digitally or on CD, feel free to contact me directly or check my website. — Produced by René Möller Recorded by Anton Pelzer at Teldex Studio, Berlin (October 2024) Edited & mastered by Jakob Böttcher Mixed by René Möller & Jakob Böttcher Piano technician: Sigmar Kesselmann Cover artwork: The Memory of Water (2025) by Star Gossage Artwork courtesy of Tim Melville Gallery Released by Rattle Records — 26 March 2026 Catalogue: RAT-D164 #Improvisation #Piano #ClassicalMusic #ContemporaryClassical #InMemoriam #FlavioVillani