Lucas Debargue – Gershwin Variations

The program is drawn from works for solo piano.

The Gershwin Variations by internationally renowned pianist Lucas Debargue present themselves as an ambitious and unprecedented project, born from the desire to explore a radically different universe after recording the Scarlatti sonatas and Fauré's complete works.

This double album is an ode to George Gershwin, an unclassifiable composer at the boundary between classical music and jazz, whose singularity inspired Lucas to create in turn a work impossible to categorize.

The album is structured in two parts, each as grandiose and virtuosic as the other…with their own distinct singularities.

The first, recorded at the Paris Philharmonie on Stephen Paulello's unique SP/287 piano, presents Gershwin's emblematic works, including the Concerto in F with the Paris Orchestra under Elim Chan's direction, the three piano preludes and a personal version of Rhapsody in Blue enriched by the pianist's cadenzas.

The second part, recorded in Paulello's studio, is entirely devoted to twelve virtuosic studies composed by Lucas based on Gershwin's most popular songs, traversing all chromatic tonalities.

This cycle represents to date the most ambitious creation of his pianist career, asserting a will for freedom and invention, and continuing in the tradition of great composers who wrote their own studies.

The Gershwin Variations are neither a classical album nor a jazz album, but a hybrid work, reflecting the anticonformist spirit and American dream carried by Gershwin.

Lucas thus offers a bold and poetic re-reading, where counterpoint, flowing harmonies and atypical rhythms reveal the richness of Gershwin's melodies.

He invites the listener to rediscover a repertoire where popularity is never synonymous with triviality, and where music becomes a space of freedom, boldness and vitality.