By Hugh Robertson

There is something about Lise de la Salle that just seems very matter of fact – almost inevitable.

Listening to the French pianist play, every note lands precisely where it should, clearly and without incident; it takes phenomenal talent, and a lot of hard work, to make this seem so easy. You can hear why British magazine Gramophone called her ‘a talent in a million.’ That casual certainty is there in her conversation, too, where she is strong in her beliefs but never forceful. And to hear her tell it, her career began in much the same way.

‘It was not really serious,’ recalls de la Salle with a half-shrug, of her public debut: performing on French radio, at the age of nine, an achievement that immediately established her as a young star on the rise. ‘It just happened. It was a little bit of luck, a little bit of a gift.

‘It was mostly because I knew the right people. And for me…I remember those years, it was really like a dream. I didn’t see it seriously or like a job or something that would become my life. I had no idea, so I was just excited and happy.’

Inevitable is the word that comes to mind again when de la Salle describes the years leading up to that famous debut, and how she fell in love with music.

‘It was some kind of no-choice situation,’ she says. ‘I was surrounded by music since my birth. And I loved it immediately and it was part of me, it was part of my childhood growing up. We had a piano at home and when I started to play with it and to be attracted by the instrument, my mother decided to put me in a conservatoire. I was four and I totally loved the instrument right away.

‘The family story goes that in my piano lesson I told my teacher that I will be a piano performer – “Je serai concertiste.” And I never questioned it.’

Again, according to her, it all just kind of happened – though she does concede that perhaps there was something more than circumstance to it.

‘It was lucky in a way – I really met the right people at the right time: the right teacher, the right person who worked at the radio, the right person who knew somebody who worked for Naïve, my record label, the right people who knew my first management…

‘So, no, I’ve been lucky. I think I had lots of potential – you cannot do all this if you don’t have a gift, that’s for sure. And I did work, and I still do.

I work a lot, and I work hard, and I give everything to my music. So I think all that together and you shake it and you have a good cocktail at the end.

Sydney audiences will finally get to sample this heady brew in April, when de la Salle will perform five concerts: a solo recital of Liszt and Chopin, and then four performances of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.19 with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Lawrence Renes.

This repertoire is the perfect introduction to de la Salle’s artistry, and in many ways is the signature repertoire of her career. She has recorded all the works she will perform in recital: Chopin’s Ballades Nos. 1 & 4 back in 2010, and the Liszt selections appear on her most recent album, released in February. (Gramophone praised the disc, describing de la Salle as ‘seasoned Lisztian…considered, technically assured and individual.’) And although she has never committed a Mozart concerto to disc, there can be no doubting her connection to his music.

‘I’m lucky to play two composers that are, if I had to pick, my absolute favourites. Mozart for sure because for me he’s in a totally unique position: he’s everything. He’s the god, he’s the man, he’s the body, he’s the lover, he’s the kid, he’s the old man, the wise, the insolent – he’s everything. I am totally crazy about his music.

It’s music that expresses just this energy of being alive and Mozart is just my hero, absolutely.

Her connection to Liszt is just as intense, and – another inevitability, perhaps – it was love at first listen.

‘I was very young my first meeting with Liszt. I was 11 years old, 10, 11 and I immediately loved his music. It felt like with some author in literature – you don't really know why but you connect, you feel like you understand the language.

‘I just feel very connected to his music. I feel like I understand it, and like I identify with it. I am kind of an emotional player and so I always put a lot of myself when I am on stage in terms of what I feel when I am playing. So I have this very strong bond with his music…there is definitely this feeling of being at home when I hear his music and being at home when I play it.’

Liszt was a lock for the solo recital, then. But what to pair with him? De la Salle says that the choice of Chopin was, again, inevitable.

‘There is something in Chopin that really complements [Liszt], I think,’ she says with a smile. ‘They are very, very, very different. They are really at the two extremes of what Romantic music is because with Liszt you have this extravaganza, lots of power and fire and passion and beautiful, extremely sensual melody. Most of his music is kind of brilliant and full of life.

‘Chopin, on the opposite, has obviously also this incredible gift for melody and singing with the piano, but it’s all about how sad and resigned and nostalgic and full of doubts and unhappy he was. And you can feel it in his music. It’s a “hopeless hope”. He turns around this idea that it might be a happy life but he never [experienced] that.

There is this kind of really elegant sadness – it never shows too much, but it’s always there.

‘And when you know a little bit about him, he was pretty shy, he was not as extravagant as Liszt, he was mostly reserved. So I think it’s very interesting to have those two composers facing each other in this program – because both are extremely lyrical, extremely romantic and express these big feelings and passion, but they are so different. So it was a nice mirror game to face them.’

Perhaps, ultimately, there could have been no other choice for this superb artist. Some things are just meant to be…