At the Odessa Conservatory Yakov Zak studied with Maria Starkova until he graduated at the age of nineteen. He then spent three years in the class of Heinrich Neuhaus at the Moscow Conservatory, graduating at the age of twenty-two. In the same year he made his concert debut and won third prize at the All- Soviet Competition of Performing Artists; but it was his winning of the first prize at the International Chopin Competition two years later that brought him international renown. He was also awarded the special prize for mazurka playing at the competition. As with many Soviet artists of the period, Zak rarely left Russia and taught at the Moscow Conservatory from the time of his graduation to his death, being made professor in 1947 and chair in 1965. However he did tour American in 1965. In 1951 Zak gave a series of concerts devoted to the works of Prokofiev to celebrate the composer’s sixtieth birthday and at the age of fifty-three he was made People’s Artist of the USSR. His most well known pupils are Yevgeny Mogilevsky, Nikolai Petrov, Yuri Egorov and Elisso Virsaladze.

Zak wrote a number of articles and gave many first performances of Soviet music including a concerto by Golubev and Kabalevsky’s Piano Sonata No. 3 Op. 46. Although his recorded output is small (and was all made for Melodya) he did record some concertos including Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 2 in G minor Op. 16, a rather light-weight (with very little pedal) Concerto No. 2 in B flat Op. 83 by Brahms with Kurt Sanderling, Rachmaninov’s Concerto No. 4 in G minor Op. 40, a fleet Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini Op. 43, and the Concerto in F sharp minor Op. 128 (1949) by Sergei Nikofovich Vasilenko, notable only for the fact that it is with the composer conducting. He also recorded a rather unidiomatic performance of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major with Yevgeny Svetlanov, and Richard Strauss’s Burleske with Zhuraitis. The solo recordings cover a wide range of repertoire including a Handel suite, Debussy’s Children’s Corner Suite, Schumann’s Kinderszenen Op. 15, Liszt’s ‘Dante’ Sonata, Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 4 in C minor Op. 29 and Mozart’s Piano Sonata K. 311. To date, nothing of Zak is available on compact disc, but his recording of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor Op. 16 was made available in the West on LP when he toured America in the mid-1960s. Zak also appeared on a series of discs of winners of the International Chopin Piano Competition issued by Polskie Nagrania from radio recordings, on both LP and compact disc; he plays nocturnes, mazurkas and waltzes where his sensitivity and subtlety in Chopin can be heard. One other LP of note is of recordings for two pianos made with a young Emil Gilels between 1948 and 1952. They play Mozart’s Fugue in C minor K. 426, and Busoni’s arrangements of the overture to Mozart’s Die Zauberflote K. 620, Fantasy in F minor K. 608 and Concert Duettino after the finale of K. 459. Also included is a fine performance of Saint-Saens’s Variations on a theme by Beethoven Op. 35. On the short-lived Revelation label Zak plays Saint-Saens’s Le Carvaval des animaux with Gilels and cellist Daniel Shafran in a Russian radio broadcast from 1951.

Zak’s style is one of lightness, flexibility and clarity which is not ideal for Brahms or Richard Strauss, although more suited to Mozart and Chopin.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — Jonathan Summers (A–Z of Pianists, Naxos 8.558107–10).