Le piano mature de Lise de la Salle
" Lise de la Salle possesses all that it is necessary to become the pianist she promises to be: a sound at once young and surprisingly  mature, fruity, carnal and rigorous , a singular spirit, and a force of conviction that goes so well with talent. "
Marie-Aude Roux, Le Monde

A teenage pianist demonstrates her remarkable range and artistry
"Lise de la Salle is a talent in a million."
Bryce Morrison, The Gramophone

Lise de la Salle, piano, a fourteen-year-old prodigy
"Glittering distinction, radiance, poetry, charm, passion for musical communication . . . Tentatively, one would like to believe in a miracle."
Wolfgang Schreiber, Süddeutsche Zeitung

Lise de la Salle
"...the exhilaration didn't let up for a second until her hands came off the keyboard and everyone could finally come up for air."
Andrew Lindemann Malone, The Washington Post

 Lise ou la carte jeune
" ...one could  hear her mature, clear and poetic piano playing."
éric Dahan, Libération

A miraculous French pianist
"She played with an air of calm and composure,commanding even in the fastest passages, limning musical events and contrapuntal structures selectively and with vivid clarity."
Rüdiger Schwarz, Abendzeitung

  "The 'really exceptional' is rare in any period, which is why the latest piano recital by 16 year old Lise de la Salle is such a significant event."
The Independent

  "Still a teenager, French pianist Lise de la Salle proves that she's a major talent in this tour-de-force disc juxtaposing some of Bach's more dense, chromatic works (Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue and the Toccata in D) with Liszt at his most sacred (St. Francis of Paola Walking on the Water) and profane (Mephisto Waltz). Bridging the two are Bach chorales and fugues heard in beefy transcriptions by Liszt and Ferruccio Busoni. At every turn, she's a pianist of remarkable insight with a convincing ease of expression. Her Bach is hotter than usual: Its romantic sweep is balanced by the kind of digital precision associated with Glenn Gould. Her Liszt is smarter than usual, the imposing walls of sound emerging with more detail and character than many pianists are able to manage."
David Patrick Stearns , Philadelphia Inquirer, August 20, 2005

"The Bach playing of this young French pianist has drive and purpose, and is naturally and sensitively phrased. It can sparkle; it can sigh: in short, it's a joy to hear. No less impressive is the fearless aplomb and unexpected power with which she despatches the virtuoso Liszt works. This would be a noteworthy piano recital at any time of one's career, but to do it when only 16 adds a delicious frisson to the whole venture."
Jeremy Nicholas, Classic FM, July 2005

"Everything about De la Salle's playing is astonishingly mature; technical challenges are met and never highlighted and she is always intent on seeking out the poetry beneath the teeming surfaces. This is distinguished piano playing."
Andrew Clements, The Guardian, May 2005

"... control, flexibility, sonority are the signs of an opened out pianism, impression which reinforce a sobriety, a dignity, an absence of excess in the expression completely remarkable."
Etienne Moreau, Diapason, April 2005

"... adding maturity and poise to her bag of technical tricks, she also interpreted the work's quieter moments with extraordinary nuance and delicacy for one so young."
T.L. Ponick, The Washington Times, October 15, 2004

"Lise de la Salle has just turned sixteen, and already she plays Liszt's First Mephisto Waltz with a vehemence that goes beyond conventional bounds. . . . This sixteen-year-old has already reached a level most pianists will never attain. She plays without cheap showmanship, skilfully dosing her emotional effects. Her playing is extremely clear and circumspect."
Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung,  September 13, 2004

"Just sixteen years old, Lise de la Salle at the piano gives an impression of sheer concentration. It is as if whatever is seen in her mind's eye is directly transformed into sound. The result in Bach's D-major Toccata was crystalline clarity with extremely present inner voices. In this way she skilfully avoided lapsing into pathos in the Bach arrangements of Busoni and Liszt. This Baroque music in Romantic guise strode forward with head held high; not until the end of the Fugue in A minor (originally for organ) did the pianist allow herself a measure of virtuoso inexorability in the Lisztian style. In the Petrarch Sonnet (no.104), the Légende de St-François de Paule and the First Mephisto Waltz, too, she laid less emphasis on the dizzying circus-stunt side of the music, or its demonic element. For all her virtuosity, nothing seemed exaggerated, and much of what she did came close to Chopin."
Ruhr Nachrichten,  September 13, 2004

"A talent that I consider, in all seriousness, to be one of the most outstanding I have had the opportunity of discovering in a long time."
Stéphane Blet, Piano, May/June 2003

"... Lise de la Salle delivers a first CD that many experienced pianists could envy ... From her rendition of Rachmaninov, we understand that everything contributes to animate the speech of its extraordinarily imaginative play: a sense of the tiny nuances, a digital power, even scratches of which one previously believed t only Martha Argerich capable, the sustained attention to the curve of every segment of the pianistic texture . "
Sylviane Falcinelli, Piano, March / April 2003

  "... Lise de la Salle knows how to avoid the trap of pure virtuosity and gives proof of a remarkable maturity by transforming velocity into narration... Lise de la Salle has a depth, a vision of works unusual for her age. "
Katia Choquer, Pianiste, March / April 2003

"... Lise de la Salle puts her ardour in the service of a rather remarkable intelligence of the text. The speech is led with force and authority without excess of pathos and without which that the enthusiasm would overstep the organic development and the nature of the music. Lise de la Salle, who is only fourteen years old, gives evidence of a surprising maturity and a very sure instinct. "
OlivierBellamy, Le Monde de la Musique, March 2003

" Listened blind facing references of the discography, this recital offers no grip to the nice condescension which surrounds generally the first steps of the young artists... In a certain way Lise de la Salle finds by exceeding it the extreme elegance, the lightness and the sound seduction of the former French school... When you will be said  that Lise de la Salle is not fifteen years old (fourteen at the time of the recording) you will have understood in what surprising hatching we are assisting! We are not in front of a young prodigy, but of a true artist. "
Jacques Bonnaure, Répertoire, March 2003

" What seduces in the listening of this CD, it is the meaning maturity of which the young musician gives evidence. Lise de la Salle succeeds in inventing complexions, in varying rhythms and sound plans, in highlighting here or there an unexpected sentence or an often masked counterpoint: what testifies of an understanding of the scores and of a personalization of the play which one does not often find... "
Jean-Luc Macia, La Croix, March 1, 2003

" Magnificently-staged mapping of sound , vision full of assurance, concern with the counterpoint, the refusal of any accommodating effects and misplaced anomalies , vigour of touch: Lise de la Salle knows how to find her way through such dense and potentially puzzling music... "
Jérôme Bastianelli, Diapason, February 2003

" An incredible elegance. All that this young fairy of the keyboard does carries the mark of  beauty... "
Aurore Busser, Nice-matin, January 21, 2003

  " She has captured the meaning of every score she plays with a lightning intelligence deserving of the greatest. "
Christophe Combarieu, Métro, January 14, 2003