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Album
Album
Schubert: Sonatas D 784 & D 894 / Young-ah Tak
Release Date:
11/01/2024
Label:
Steinway & Sons
Catalog #:
30235
Composer:
Franz Schubert
Performer:
Young-Ah Tak
Number of Discs:
1
This title is currently unavailable.
Works on Recording
Notes and Reviews
Pianist Young-Ah Tak's artistry shines in her latest album on the Steinway & Sons label, featuring sensitive performances of two Schubert sonatas.
Album Credits:
Recorded October 5 & 23, 2023 at Steinway Hall, New York City.
Producer: Jon Feidner
Engineers: Joshua Frey, Lauren Sclafani, Melody Nieun Hwang
Mixing and Mastering: Daniel Shores
Editor: Kazumi Umeda
Executive Producers: Eric Feidner, Jon Feidner
Art Direction: Jackie Fugere
Design: Cover to Cover Design, Anilda Carrasquillo
Photo of Young-Ah Tak: Lisa-Marie Mazzucco
Project Coordinator: Renée Oakford
Piano Technician: John Veitch
Piano: Steinway Model D
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#607799 (New York)
R E V I E W S:
A solo piano release from the Steinway & Sons label is always cause for excitement when it brings with it the promise of a beautiful instrument sound. That the musician performing the material is Young-Ah Tak makes the proposition all the more enticing, as does her composer choice for the project, Franz Schubert. With Tak playing a Steinway piano (Model D #607799, to be exact), the two sonatas, recorded in October 2023 at NYC's Steinway Hall, sound?literally and figuratively?terrific. Like many a pianist, Tak was enraptured by Schubert's music the moment she first heard it as a pre-teen, and her love for his material has never abated. And why would it? Commenting on the emotional depth of his music and the sense of privilege she feels performing it, she states, ?Schubert's sonatas resonate with the human spirit?their beauty, joy, sadness, drama, and yearning.? Tak derives inspiration, joy, and meaning from the experience, and of course so too does the listener.
She studied at The Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, and the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University (where she earned her doctorate) and is currently an Associate Professor of Piano at the Crane School of Music of the State University of New York - Potsdam. The list of places she's performed is extensive, ranging as it does from the United States to Poland, South Korea, and other countries, and is a member of the Marinus Ensemble. In 2019, she issued a recording of Beethoven piano sonatas on the Steinway & Sons label and for her follow-up tackles another composer dear to the pianist's heart. Schubert was thirty-one when he died but created an incredible amount of music during his truncated tenure, including twelve sonatas, from which Tak selected two written late in the composer's life for this release. In her treatments of the Sonata in A minor, D 784 and Sonata in G Major, D 894, Tak exemplifies the finesse and passion for which she's become known and demonstrates an insightful grasp of their kaleidoscopic emotional scope.
The three-movement A minor sonata was completed in 1823, five years before Schubert's death (though not published until eleven years after his passing) and written during a period of hospitalization. Marked ?Allegro giusto,? the opening movement initiates the work in the bleak key of A minor with a dark yet nevertheless stately theme delivered sombrely. Extreme dynamic contrasts emerge between aggressive passages and gentler ones until a placid episode follows and the music exchanges despair for lyricism. Tak articulates the movement's abundant dramatic transitions with sensitivity and precision, and her handling of tempo is likewise circumspect. A sense of peaceful resolution emerges during the closing minutes, despite brief eruptions of darkness, after which the subsequent ?Andante? injects the work with a cautious sense of hope via lyrical voicings and an overall genial character. Here and elsewhere, it's easy to be seduced by Schubert's melodic gifts. The closing ?Allegro vivace? movement flows like a rushing river, with the pianist challenged technically by high-velocity flurries and counterpoint. A serene second theme offers comforting respite from the intensity until the work concludes in a torrential blaze.
Finished in 1826 and published a year later as Fantasie, Andante, Menuetto und Allegretto, Op. 78 (the publisher's choice, perhaps to make the work more palatable commercially), the G Major holds the distinction of being the last of the three sonatas published during his lifetime. At the risk of projecting, the serene tone of the work could be interpreted to suggest its creator was in some way aware of his impending demise; regardless, its peaceful character is certainly one of the reasons why the four-movement, thirty-five-minute work resonates so powerfully. Marked ?Molto moderato e cantabile,? the thirteen-minute opening part engages immediately with serene chords and the dreamy lilt of its dignified theme but also expands on the intro with an elaborate exploration before revisiting the hymnal hush of the opening melody. The placid feel carries over into the ?Andante? movement, though loud disruptions intermittently emerge that add tension and drama, while the concise ?Menuetto ? Allegro moderato? that comes after is predictably boisterous, fluttering as it does between hammering chords and lighthearted dance figures. Having begun prettily with radiant melodies and an infectious march feel, the concluding ?Allegretto? movement largely sustains the mood of harmonious uplift for the nine-minute duration.
No less a figure than Robert Schumann deemed the G Major, which in time would be called by some the "Fantasia" Sonata, to be Schubert's ?most perfect in form and conception.? While scholars might debate that claim, no arguments will likely arise concerning the superb quality of the recording and Tak's spectacular renditions. -- Textura
...Schubert was born six years later than F.X. Mozart and died 16 years earlier, but he broadened and expanded the piano repertoire in ways far beyond anything that F.X. Mozart ever produced. His piano sonatas - many unfinished, Schubert's habit being to leave a large number of works partly completed, possibly with the never-realized intention of returning to them later - have scale and emotional scope extending far beyond the poise and prettiness associated with salon music. Some of his sonatas, including the two played by Young-Ah Tak on a new Steinway & Sons CD, are significant contributions to the solo-piano genre and continue to challenge performers and delight audiences today. The three-movement No. 14 (D. 784) in A minor dates to 1823 but was not published until 1839, which was 11 years after Schubert's death. Its first movement is unusually sparse in texture and has few of the modulations of which Schubert was generally fond. It is a bleak movement that leads to an Andante with a straightforward theme that is handled in some unusual ways - and then to a finale that seems to inhabit an altogether different world, being complex, virtuosic and thoroughly unsettling in mood. The difficulty for performers lies in integrating the three movements into a unified whole - something that Schubert himself did not really succeed in doing. Tak's approach is to focus on the singing quality that all the movements share and to use the gently rocking sections of the finale as, in effect, auditory throwbacks to what has come before. She does not downplay the fireworks that dominate the finale, but she pays equal attention to the lyrical elements and thus maintains a sense of expressiveness throughout. This results in an interesting contrast with No. 18, D. 894, which dates to 1823 and was the last of Schubert's piano sonatas published during his lifetime. It is a much larger work than D. 784, running 35 minutes to 19 for D. 784. And D. 894 is in four movements, not three. Instead of featuring varying moods that can be difficult to capture and contrast, D. 894 is mainly peaceful, with its relatively rare moments of darkness sounding more poignant than tragic. The challenge with this sonata is to retain its generally sunny mood without trivializing any of its gently contrasting feelings as they emerge in various guises and then ebb. This sonata is in G, and from the start of its opening movement - the longest in the piece - there is a sense that the mood will be Molto moderato e cantabile throughout, not just in the opening movement, which bears that designation. Indeed, everything in D. 894 is moderate: the second movement is Andante, the third Allegro moderato, and the fourth Allegretto. The subtle distinctions among the tempo indications require pianists to find ways both to connect the movements and to allow their individual characteristics to flow forth. Tak does a fine job with the music, keeping it moving at a reasonable pace while using its warm flow to carry the listener along gently through an aural landscape that is mostly pleasant and serene. These are well-considered performances that delve into Schubert's expressiveness sure-handedly and with fine attention to the works' emotional impact.
-- InfoDad
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1.
Sonata for Piano in A minor, D 784/Op. 143
Composer:
Franz Schubert
Performer:
Young-Ah Tak (Piano)
Period:
Romantic
Written:
1823 Vienna, Austria
Date of Recording:
10/5&17/2023
Venue:
Steinway Hall, New York City
Length:
19 Minutes 12 Secs.
2.
Sonata for Piano in G major, D 894/Op. 78
Composer:
Franz Schubert
Performer:
Young-Ah Tak (Piano)
Period:
Romantic
Written:
1826 Vienna, Austria
Date of Recording:
10/5&17/2023
Venue:
Steinway Hall, New York City
Length:
35 Minutes 06 Secs.
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