Initially, Gia Margaret titled her new album Romantic Piano with a bit of cheekiness. Its sparse, gentle piano pieces resonate more with Erik Satie, Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guébrou, and Masakatsu Takagi's Marginalia releases than with a cozy date night. Yet within this cheekiness lies intention: the term “Romantic” suggests a classic sense of waldeinsamkeit, evoking themes of solitude in nature, healing, and contented melancholy.

“I wanted to make music that was useful,” Margaret notes, understatedly capturing the album's power. Romantic Piano is curious, calming, patient, and deeply moving, yet never overstays its welcome.

Her debut, There’s Always Glimmer, showcased her lyrical talent, but after an illness on tour hindered her singing, she created the ambient album Mia Gargaret, revealing her intuition for arrangement and composition. Romantic Piano follows suit, primarily without lyrics. “Writing instrumental music is a much more joyful process than lyrical songwriting,” she explains. While more songwriterly material is on the horizon, Romantic Piano establishes her as a compositional force.

Margaret initially pursued a degree in composition but left music school halfway through, stating, “I really didn’t want to play in an orchestra; I wanted to write movie scores.” Focusing on songwriting, Romantic Piano revisits that old desire. The album evokes a rare feeling in art, often reserved for cinema—simultaneously capturing the awe of existence and the intimate inner monologue of isolation.

How very Romantic!