Press

"David Lively, the most French of American pianists, invites us to make another discovery. His taste for the seldom performed is well known, as is his fabulous talent, which brought us an anthology version of Busoni's Concerto, but this time, under the benevolent protection of the Palazzetto Bru Zane, he is going to reveal to us the very rare. Let us judge: the two Sonatas by Benjamin Godard, the Scène du Bal and the Six Airs de danse dans le style ancien by Leo Delibes. We are already all ears, as for Debussy's Suite Bergamasque, the only well known score of a concert that smells of adventure."

Jean-Charles Hoffelé

"David Lively's taste for contemporary music, especially that of the United States, is no mystery. Of American origin, this gifted keyboardist, who has enjoyed a solid reputation in France since his participation in the Long-Thibaud-Crespin competition, has established himself as one of the best interpreters of the music of Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland and Charles Ives. It is therefore hardly surprising to find these three composers on the menu of his latest disc (I Got Rhythm, La Musica), most of which is devoted to George Gershwin and his arrangements for solo piano of his vocal standards. A dizzying perspective, where Carter's revolutionary Thoughts on the Piano rubs shoulders with hits from the American Songbook, putting us back in the atmosphere of a Woody Allen. But Lively is not far off. Equally at ease with the creative process as he is with Renaissance repertoire, he travels through the eras at will."

Thierry Hilleriteau

"A glance at David Lively's discography is enough to understand that the Franco-American pianist has no taste for one-size-fits-all recordings (he has ventured into the Concertos of Busoni, Marx and Furtwängler or the chamber music of Huybrechts, among others). The recital "I Got Rhythm", released on January 26, offers a new illustration of his curiosity. In the introductory lines of his program, the man who moved to this side of the Atlantic when he was only 16 years old does not hide the nostalgia that led him to this return to the sources of American music. From Scott Joplin's illustrious and soothing Maple Leaf Rag - the first song in the music edition to have sold more than a million copies - to Elliot Carter's Catenaries - in a truly dizzying interpretation - Lively has composed a musical album that is as balanced as it is contrasted, one of those records that grab your attention from the very first track and doesn't let go until the end. Indeed, how can one resist the solar energy of Souvenir de Porto Rico or Louis Moreau Gottschalk's Banjo, the mastery and the energy with which Charles Ives' brief Some Southpaw Pitching is performed? One can enjoy no less than a dozen excerpts from Gershwin's Songbook: to say that Lively is playing from his family tree is to state the obvious, but the result is admirable in its tact, charm and wit. And with what a palette of colors does the interpreter do justice to each of the miniatures he tackles, there as in Copland's Four Blues, no less characterized than Barber's Excursions, a collection that has not often been heard interpreted before with so much sound imagination. The Hoedown from William Albright's Five Chromatic Dances, with its abundant freedom, two memorable performances of  Carter's Intermittences and Caténaires and - icing on the cake and a nod to Joplin - William Bolcom's heady and more than tonic Serpent's Kiss -Rag Fantasy crown a recital of admirable coherence. "A journey," writes David Lively, "and a celebration to boot!"

Alain Cochard

 

"French-American pianist David Lively uses Scott Joplin’s ragtime to springboard into the great American experiment in rhythm, exploring the work of an eclectic group of American composers — from Louis Moreau Gottschalk to Elliott Carter — who assumed the mantle of Joplin’s vanguard influence."

"Souvenir de Porto Rico, Marche des Gibaros, is a richly contrasted, pianistically demanding piece that Lively powers up to a fortissimo in the central climax. Quite rich in sound, he also attacks Gottschalk's American sketch The Banjo, his technique and determination stunning here as in all the other works on this album."

Piano

Ernst Hoffmann

"Lively, who traces his musical lineage directly back to Chopin through a kind of apostolic succession of teachers, writes in the album notes that rediscovering the chamber versions of the concertos restores the fine balance between piano and accompaniment that the pieces require and that often goes missing with the orchestral versions......The performances are revelatory. Lively believes that Chopin’s unconventional writing for the piano requires a steadier tactus than modern performances provide. He manages to incorporate the composer’s elaborate filigree into a clear metrical structure while still allowing for expressive elasticity. The pianist’s goal of achieving “a true piano sextet with the greatest variety of colour and balance” is beautifully realized in these readings, which feature niceties of ensemble that any orchestra — modern or period — would be hard-pressed to duplicate."

Daniel Hathaway

“The star of symphony programs, Chopin's concertos are performed here with fortepiano (an 1836 Erard with extraordinary shades of light) and string quintet, as in the days of their first performances in private salons. Before David Lively, other pianists had tried their hand at the chamber version, but never as he does, playing, for example, certain phrases entrusted to the winds of the orchestra. However, the return to the roots of the score is not limited to these subtleties of timbre. The tempi, the phrasing and the exchanges with the strings, among others, determine a reconsideration of the music that is similar to the revelation of a fresco denatured by multiple restorations. Stripped but not sanitized by this approach of absolute acoustic rigor, Chopin's concertos never cease to surprise. Their balance, the key word of the performers of this fascinating disc, is renewed both in the classical perspective of No. 2 (the first, in fact, in chronological order) and in the romantic effervescence of No. 1”

Pierre Gervasoni