Gershwin Variations

George Gershwin: Three Preludes; Piano Concerto in F; Rhapsody in blue; Embraceable You, Rumba in E; Fascinating Rhythm, Valse in A; Someone To Watch Over Me in D Pavane, Gaillarde; It Ain't Necessarily So in G - Fantaisie, Chaconne & Fugue; Gavotte & Double in C on Liza; But Not For Me in F - Prelude, Perpetuum Mobile; I Want To Stay Here, Adagio Dekadent in B-Flat; The Man I Love, Mirage in E-Flat; They Can't Take That Away From Me, Romance in A-Flat; I Got Rhythm (I Really Got Rhythm !), Boom Bap in D-Flat; Lady Be Good, Berceuse in F-Sharp; Summertime, 20 Concert Variations & Finale, on a Theme of George Gershwin in B.

Lucas Debargue piano

Orchestre De Paris Conductor Elim Chan Künden Hande solo violin

Sony 19958404642

Some recordings politely ask for your attention. This one pulls up a stool at the bar, loosens its tie and calls for another round. For anyone who loves Gershwin and the jazz idiom, Lucas Debargue's Gershwin Variations is a double album to treasure: it fizzes, it swings and it oozes panache from first bar to last.

The first disc, recorded at the Philharmonie de Paris, pairs Debargue with the Orchestre de Paris under Elim Chan. The Piano Concerto in F skips along with real clarity, the orchestration crisp, the syncopations relished and the percussion crackling with rhythmic fervour. Then the lights dim. In the slow movement, the muted solo trumpet and low woodwinds summon that hour after midnight when the smoke hangs low over the tables, and Debargue settles into the sultry, blues-inflected melody like a regular taking his usual seat. Before long you are no longer in Paris at all but in a basement club somewhere in Manhattan. His playing is deliciously refined, and when virtuosity is needed it arrives without fuss.

A word, too, about Chan and her players. Accompanying a pianist with this much freedom is no easy gig, yet the balance is superbly judged. They never intrude and always contribute, like a house band that knows exactly when to lay out. Rhapsody in Blue, heard here in its solo piano arrangement, is lithe and sounds as if the ink were still wet. Debargue clearly became so absorbed in it that he could not resist sitting in, adding his own cadenzas, some written and some improvised, to its final two sections. As an organist whose improvisations rarely stray beyond spinning out the last verse of a hymn while the choir finds its breath, I listened with a mixture of admiration and mild envy. He shows his credentials again in Fascinating Rhythm, all glittering runs, and the I Got Rhythm Variations are thrilling, going straight to the heart of the title.

On the second disc the orchestra steps aside, leaving Debargue alone at Stephen Paulello's 2.87-metre instrument, and here the composer in him takes the spotlight. His dozen virtuoso études built on Gershwin songs are brilliant and flawlessly crafted. The tunes are instantly familiar but are dressed in all manner of styles, from rumba to chaconne and fugue. Together they show how vividly Gershwin fired Debargue's imagination.

The 20 Variations and Finale in B on Summertime are particularly delicious, a colourful carnival in which a tango, a polonaise, reggae and bossa nova each take a turn on the dance floor before the finale gathers them all in. The Lullaby on Lady Be Good is simply beautiful.

The set is handsomely produced, and the booklet includes a fascinating short essay in which Debargue explains the album's title. Variation, he argues, deserves its place back at the centre of musical life, since it is where playing, writing and improvising meet. He set out to capture the perpetual reinvention that keeps music breathing, and Gershwin's above all. On this evidence, he has done exactly that.

Exuberant, vivacious and endlessly inventive, this belongs on the shelf of every Gershwin lover, though I suspect it will spend far more time in the player than on the shelf.