In Memoriam

Flavio Villani

Release date: Thursday, March 26

Rebecca Tansley's film Crossing Rachmaninoff documented a turning point in Flavio’s life. It followed his preparation of Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto, but more precisely, it traced a question that has followed him throughout his career: “Am I good enough?” For Flavio, that question has never fully disappeared. It changes shape. Sometimes it pounds his chest. Other times it becomes quieter. This album emerges from that quieter place. If the film captured the courage of stepping forward, this album considers what remains when movement settles — memory, loss, and renewal.

Monumental yet inward, Busoni’s transcendent piano arrangement of Bach’s Chaconne in D minor unfolds as architecture built from grief, variation after variation accumulating tension, darkness and light, until form itself becomes consolation. Flavio has often returned to it as a pillar, as something that stands when certainty does not.

Interwoven with this pillar at the heart of the album is Flavio’s five-movement suite In Memoriam, written in response to personal loss and shaped partly through improvisation. Movement 1, Prelude, opens in luminous waves of harmony, from which a melody gradually emerges as if memory is forming itself in sound. Movement 2, Elegy, deepens the atmosphere with restrained lyricism: tender, yet carrying a sense of quiet defeat. It’s a piece that grew out of the first improvisation Flavio recorded after returning to the piano following nearly two months away from it at the beginning of 2024.

Stuck in B-flat lingers in harmonic fixation, a meditation on memory’s circular pull, where modal melodies move above a descending pattern that refuses to let go. Buona Notte, Bello recalls a small improvisation sent during one of the Covid lockdowns, a fragile goodnight across distance which then ends on a whispered farewell. The final movement, Coda, returns to material from Elegy, reshaping it in quieter, more spacious contours. A repeated E-flat at the close echoes the opening of Elegy, as if tracing footsteps gradually dissolving: in sand, in snow, in air. Harmonies linger in suspension before resolving with restrained, aching tenderness.

Chopin’s Ballades (Nos. 2 & 4) extend the emotional terrain, balancing turbulence and lyricism, drama and intimacy. The album closes not in grandeur but in suspended introspection with the Nocturne Op. 27 No. 1, where shadow and light are held in delicate equilibrium.

In Memoriam captures a wide dynamic spectrum, from whispered transparency to architectural resonance. It is both a debut solo outing and a continuation of a question for Flavio. Not “am I good enough?” but “enough for what?” Enough to keep searching. Enough to keep listening. Enough to let memory become music.

Produced by René Möller
Recorded by Anton Pelzer at Teldex Studio, Berlin. October 10-12, 2024
Piano technician: Sigmar Kesselmann
Edited by Jakob Böttcher
Mixed by René Möller, Jakob Böttcher
Mastered by Jakob Böttcher
Cover artwork by Star Gossage, “The memory of water”, 2025, acrylic and pastels on canvas, courtesy of Tim Melville Gallery (www.timmelville.com)
Artwork photography by Evie MacKay
Design by UnkleFranc
Printing by Studio Q

Released: 26 March 2026
Catalogue: RAT-D164

Italian–New Zealand pianist Flavio Villani’s work bridges tradition and personal exploration. His artistic journey was documented in Rebecca Tansley's feature film "Crossing Rachmaninoff" (2015), which followed his preparation of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto and revealed the vulnerability behind the pursuit of artistic identity. Since then, Flavio has continued to refine a voice that balances architectural clarity with intimacy and colour. In 2026, he completed a Doctor of Musical Arts, focusing on improvisation within classical performance — research that informs his listening-led approach to structure and spontaneity at the piano. He directs L'Accademia Music School in Auckland and serves as a Performance Fellow at the University of Waikato. He performs widely and is deeply engaged in collaborative and educational projects. “In Memoriam”, his debut solo recording, marks a significant artistic milestone — a reflection on memory, loss, and renewal through both historical repertoire and his own compositions.